NASHVILLE — David Poile built the Nashville Predators from the bottom up as their first general manager.
Now the man Poile hired as their first coach has brought back another original Predator.
Barry Trotz, the club's incoming GM, announced the hiring Wednesday of Andrew Brunette as head coach. When the Predators debuted as an NHL expansion franchise a quarter-century ago, it was Brunette who scored their first-ever goal, breaking through in the second game of the inaugural season.
The Predators' circle is complete again.
"He knows how our organization works and is run from top to bottom, understands what we are trying to do with this club," Trotz said Wednesday at a news conference introducing Brunette. "We're trying to get younger. We're trying to retool, build a team that can win a Stanley Cup."
Trotz, announced in February as Poile's replacement starting July 1, has been evaluating the franchise for months while working with Poile. Trotz, who fired John Hynes and assistant Dan Lambert on Tuesday with a year left on their contracts, credited Hynes — who took over in January 2020 after Peter Laviolette was fired — with doing a great job with the roster he had.
However, Trotz has known Brunette since he was 19. They are familiar to one another personally and professionally, making the decision to hire the 49-year-old Brunette the easy choice of three candidates that included Karl Taylor, coach of the American Hockey League's Milwaukee Admirals, the Predators' minor league affiliate.
"I have the utmost confidence that he can lead us to where we want to go," Trotz said of Brunette and chasing the NHL title that eluded Nashville in its lone Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2017.
These coaching moves are the first by Trotz and come about six weeks after the Predators missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014 — when Poile did not renew Trotz's contract.
Brunette spent the past season as a New Jersey Devils associate coach under Lindy Ruff and has previous head coaching experience.
He was promoted to interim coach of the Florida Panthers during the 2021-22 season and oversaw them setting franchise records for wins (58) and points (122) to earn the Presidents' Trophy before being eliminated in the second round of the playoffs. Brunette finished second in voting for the Jack Adams Award, given to the NHL's coach of the year.
Brunette called being back with the Predators exciting after watching both the team and Nashville's growth since he left.
"I'm looking forward to growing and grabbing the Predator way, the foundation that which this organization's been built on and continuing to grow that," Brunette said.
In addition to Brunette playing for Trotz during the Predators' inaugural season, their relationship goes back to 1993-94, when a 19-year-old Brunette played under Trotz, who was head coach of the Washington Capitals' AHL affiliate in Portland, Maine.
The new coach made clear he wants the Predators to embrace an offensive style and play keep-away with the puck. He also wants them to have fun and want to come to work every day.
"As a player, I know when I didn't have fun, I stunk," Brunette said.
Added Trotz: "We play hockey, we don't work it."
The Predators may take a step back to go forward after stockpiling draft picks at the trade deadline this year. Trotz now must build on the Predators' youth and offensively skilled players as he takes over for Poile, who will officially retire at the end of June as the NHL's winningest and longest-tenured GM.
Trotz said he may have been known as a defensive coach because of the rosters he worked with in Nashville, Washington — where he won the Stanley Cup as a coach in 2018 — and with the New York Islanders. Still, he made clear he plans to build a team that can play an offensive style.
"After all, we're in the winning and the entertainment business," Trotz said.
With the Panthers, Brunette coached a team that led the NHL with 337 goals and had the league's fourth-best power play.
Brunette, who is from Sudbury, Ontario, played 16 seasons in the NHL, with the last a one-year stint with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2011-12. He finished with 268 goals and 733 points in 1,110 games split among six teams, including two stints with the Minnesota Wild, and is one of 25 players selected in the seventh round or later to appear in more than 1,000 NHL games.
Upon his retirement, Brunette spent seven seasons with the Wild in various off-ice roles, including assistant coach and assistant GM, before being hired by the Panthers as an assistant coach in 2019-2020.