Words matter. These are the best Barry Trotz Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
My father, Orest, worked as a mechanic for the CNR and he got transferred to Dauphin from Winnipeg.
You can be a great skater, you can have really good puck skills, but the ability to problem-solve is, to me, key.
I think a lot of times what practice can do for you when guys are playing a lot of minutes, it sometimes takes away a little bit of their sharpness, because they have the puck a lot and all that.
I have a list of stuff I need to do during the day. I try to do a couple of hours of professional stuff, be it hockey stuff I haven’t gotten to the last little while, husband stuff, everything to repairing stuff around the house that I neglected around the winter.
The great thing about David Poile and Nashville is they believe in the people that they hire and they stick with the people that they hire.
I think I’m very adaptable.
You make mental notes. You’re a coach, so you make mental notes from matchups, to who steps up in the playoffs to who doesn’t, different types of players.
You cannot be a one-trick pony all the time. You have to grow your game.
My wife usually gives me a project… I like going to work because I can be the boss for once.
To me, the make-up of a modern defenseman, the No. 1 thing is the processing skills.
Four has been my lucky number. I have four kids; it has been a really good number for me.
Obviously my former place in Washington, you got stars like Alex Ovechkin. Those are great challenges because you’re looking at a player who does something very unique and trying to grow him in areas.
All of my life, my wife’s been the rock. She’s made the right decisions.
I’m a big believer that if you can have success in the playoffs, when it means the most and when the game is at its highest pace, it always carries into the next year and it gives a player confidence.
One of the things I think you’re always conscious of is we’re in the winning business.
You need balance, and if you have dynamic people – I’ve always tried to assess the talent and say, ‘Okay, how can we get better as a group and how can we win hockey games?’
I’m an Islander. I appreciate the ownership and the fans and the players, the trainers, coaches, all the people that were involved and the success that we had together.
You can’t take your foot off the pedal; you’ve got to get pucks to the next level.
When you sign up for Team Canada, we look for the best way to do things, plain and simple.
There’s times where I go off the rails like anybody else. For the most part, I try to keep it, ‘Hey, this is what we’re dealt and this is the situation, so let’s make the best of it.’ Keep a positive attitude.
What happens when you have to use your top guys so much, they’re going to hit a wall at some point, and they’ll go four or five games where they just don’t have the juice to play at the level that you need, and therefore your team suffers a little bit.
Back-to-back Presidents’ Trophies, I don’t think that happens too often.
A lot of teams get a lot of offense off the rush.
As a coach, you look for the elements. Sort of like a chemist, you want to say, ‘Okay, here we have all of the parts,’ and make what you think will be a successful line.
Practices for me, when your team is not going really well, it can stake a lot of stink out of the air.
Bobby Orr, I thought he was the greatest player of all time because he was so far ahead of the competition in his prime.
Even when I eat, I’ll eat my salad first and sort of work around the plate.
For my size, I think I played bigger than my size. I tried to play bigger, which is probably why I got as injured as I did.
You’re not going to go to battle with someone you don’t know. It doesn’t matter what walk of life it is, whether it’s business or in war.
The thing that got me to change was when my kids would come and tell me I was swearing on TV, so I knew I wanted to make a change.
There’s a tension in Washington that was undeniable. I could write my name in the air there.
The great thing about the Island is you’ve got room. You can go for a bike ride. We’re 20 minutes to a beach, and you can get on the beach and go for a long walk.
I love what I do in Washington.
You get mentally fatigued and you get physically fatigued, too. Usually that’s when bad things happen on the ice and then you’re more at risk for injury.
I think I have a lot more respect for someone who will be bold enough to say, ‘I’m the leader of the hockey team, we’re going to go there and give our best game and we’re going to win the hockey game.’
The guys who don’t get a lot of minutes, you get a lot more practice, you’re on the ice, you’re getting maybe a better workout, though you might not be getting all of the game stuff.
Every player is wired differently. Some players you know exactly where they’re headed, where they’re going and what they’re thinking. There are other guys wired differently. It allowed me to understand the personality of Alexander Ovechkin.
I love superstars.
Every year, you need a couple of weeks to energize as a coach and get back at it.
I’d love to go in the foxhole with guys who will stick their neck out and say, ‘I’m going to deliver for you.’
A new challenge, to me, is really exciting.
I have one of those faces that you’re not going to forget. Kids are scared of me.
There’s too much parity in the NHL.
A nontraditional hockey market is turning into more of a traditional market. We’re now a fabric of Nashville.
The big element I think that I bring is that I am a veteran coach.
Injuries happen every season. We can’t rely on that being a crutch. It’s up to all of us to do our best to fill those voids as coaches and players.
I think anytime you experience the All-Star Games, the World Cups, the Olympics and all those things – those are great experiences, and those don’t come along that often.
My son and I ride a tandem bike. We turn the music on and just enjoy riding through our neighborhood.
The team that can be consistent – for the most part all year – is going to be the team that is going to get into the playoffs.
If you’re not playing really well, practices can sort of correct it.
Anytime you go to the All-Star Game, you recognize that it’s special. It’s an experience that you don’t want to pass up.
When you get everybody going in the right direction you can do some great things, and that’s in any business.
There are a couple things that I could be doing, maybe owning a coffee shop or work in construction, building houses back in Nashville or British Columbia. I’ve also thought about being a property owner which would give me income and allow me to fix and maintain those properties to keep me busy.
There’s going to be a point in time when I can go to a NHL game in Nashville with my grandkids. That’s really special.
Goal scorers are always sniffing things out, but once they realize ‘hey, if I don’t have the puck I can’t score,’ then you have to be a part of the solution so you can get it back so you can score.
One of the things you look for is leadership, and it comes in different forms. There’s vocal leaders, there’s quiet leaders, there’s leaders that lead by example.
If you get goaltending above the curve, you have an immense advantage.
We might have, with Hockey Canada, an Aero Bar, a chocolate bar. ‘Okay we’re going to play for this chocolate bar.’ Here you have guys who made millions of dollars, they’re professional athletes, and they will fight tooth and nail to win. It’s not necessarily for the chocolate bar. It’s the competitive spirit.
That’s what they hired me to do in Washington, change a little bit of the culture, try to win a Stanley Cup.
Part of the greatness of being on the Island is it’s a smaller community; all of the players live within a couple miles of each other. It really promotes that family sort of atmosphere without being engulfed by the big city.
It’s life, it’s hockey. You just can’t worry about it.
Missing a game or getting a little bit of a bump up or getting a scolding once in a while puts everybody in their right place.
Joining the Islander family and living on the Island has been special.
Sometimes when you start playing games you don’t get as many practices and you don’t get as many touches. People think you have the puck the whole time during a game – you really don’t.
Just like all young players, there is a difference between being involved and just participating.
You don’t have that good team effort without good goaltending.
My oldest daughter got married, she had a wedding in Hawaii and a reception in Nashville, and in between I had a Cup date in Dauphin, Manitoba.
As a parent, your biggest fear is having our child not loved.
Hopefully when I make it to 80, I can go to a hockey game and watch the Predators and Capitals play with my grandkids. That’s probably my legacy on the hockey side.
I’ve been watching the growth of Auston Matthews, for instance. If he were playing 20 years ago, we’d be saying he’s Mario Lemieux-like. He’s 6-foot-5. He skates great. He’s got unbelievable hands and a hockey IQ.
