The Fourth Period: David Pagnotta when asked about the Nashville Predators and their hope to be able to turn things around.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Kate Pettersen: “We talked about the other day, but hot topic again, the Nashville Predators. Barry Trotz made some comments about a rebuild. Now they were kind of taken out of context, but what it didn’t do is seemingly spark the team. They lost (four of their last five) now. So I’m going to ask you this again a couple days later, is anything brewing?
Pagnotta: “Well, Barry admitted that he’s trying. He’s looking around and seeing what’s available out there. But going back to what we said earlier (last) week, he’s not going to rush into any moves just for the sake of doing one.
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Now, he is doing his due diligence and exploring, just like everybody else. And yes, he would like to help improve his team, specifically, you know, with the, with the second line center. Right now they’re line juggling all over the place to try to get things going, and the frustration is brewing even more now.
But they’re not just going to tear everything down. They’re not just going to spend all that money they did in July and say, ‘Yeah, forget about it. We’re just going to go in a different direction.’ Not that soon.
So there’s still hope. There’s still a belief that they can get out of this one, Kate, but it’s going to take an effort on the ice in order to propel them forward. Barry Trotz is going to look to see how they perform. How can he add some pieces to complement their game and improve the overall system right now?
But again, the rebuild, yeah, that’s down the road. That’s, let’s see next summer if we need to improve and start embracing that type of plan.
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But for now, they’re focused on trying to improve. And if Barry Trotz can add to this group, and he has cap space, he’s got a little over $4.7 million in space right now so they can add but nobody is going to fill in the life preserver. so he’s going to hang tight until he finds the right deal.”