With his team taking a few days off for the National Hockey League's All Star Break, Nashville Predators Head Coach Barry Trotz was in town to watch the Milwaukee Admirals -- Nashville's American Hockey League affiliate -- take on the Quad City Flames Tuesday night.
Trotz was paying close attention to the Admirals' 4-0 victory because a good number of the players on the ice will eventually be under his watch in Nashville.
A dozen players currently on the Predators' roster spent significant time playing in Milwaukee, which has been affiliated with Nashville for the last decade. During that time, the Admirals have a 34-247-48-65 record, claiming the 2004 Calder Cup and advancing to the 2006 Finals.
The arrangement has been beneficial to the Predators, too. The parent club has finished second in the Central Division each of the last three years -- compiling a 141-80-25 record during that span -- with a roster loaded with homegrown talent.
Developing young players has been the key to Nashville's success. Playing in a smaller and non-traditional NHL market, the Predators aren't big players on the free agent market and, thus, depend on player development.
"For us, it's really important," Trotz says. "We're not a high-payroll team so we live and die with the development of our young kids."
Among the "young kids" making hay for the Predators this season is goaltender Pekka Rinne, who spent three seasons protecting the crease for the Admirals.
Rinne has been very good for the Predators this season; his first full-time stint in the NHL. He's emerged as Nashville's starting net-minder and has a 2.02 goals-against average since Dec. 1 and a .927 save percentage with four shutouts.
"You look at the goaltenders -- a guy like Pekka is a big part of our future," Trotz says. "He's very mature and has a good approach. He's an incredibly gifted athlete. He has all the right tools to be very good."
Rinne's success comes as no surprise to Admirals fans. As a rookie, he anchored Milwaukee's run to the Calder Cup Finals and was consistently among the AHL's best goalies. That success is part of the reason he spent so much time in Milwaukee. Though incredibly talented, he wouldn't have seen much playing time behind Thomas Vokun, who was dealt to Florida in a cost-cutting move before the 2007-08 season.
The Predators considered bringing Rinne up then to back up Chris Mason (another former Admiral), but decided instead to sign veteran free agent Dan Ellis, giving Rinne another year to improve his play.
"Kids want (to make it to the NHL) so quickly that they don't realize that the American Hockey League is the best developmental league in the world and that's where they need to develop," says Trotz. "The NHL is the best league in the world and all you care about there is winning. If you try to develop kids in the NHL, you're not going to win a lot of games and they're not going to develop as quickly.
"To me, kids staying down in Milwaukee the extra half or even a year pays off a lot more."
In his fourth year with the Predators, Weber has emerged as one of the league's best up-and-coming young defensemen. He's currently sixth among NHL defensemen with 32 points (14 goals, 18 assists) and will join Rinne in Montreal this weekend for the All Star Game.
"A lot of guys in the (AHL) will play and give you minutes in the NHL," Trotz says. "But can they produce at that level? Weber can come in and produce; he's one of those special ones."
A few more players have been called up this season, including current points-leader Mike Santorelli and defenseman Alexander Sulzer. Both recently returned from stints in Nashville and Sulzer, in his second year with Milwaukee, is looking forward to getting back there for good.
Admirals Head Coach Lane Lambert says that, in situations like Sulzer's, there can be a bit of a "hangover" when players return from NHL call-ups. Once that hangover wears off, it's up to the player to continue improving to the point where he earns his next promotion.
"There's always the fire in the belly when you get called up and sent back down," Lambert says. "You want to go back. It takes a few games to get over going from playing in front of 18,000 fans to riding on the bus again ... it can be a disappointment sometimes, but the sooner a player gets over it, the better he will be and he'll find himself back up there."
Before being sent back to Milwaukee after a brief call-up, Trotz told Sulzer to keep working on his game and he'd back again soon and that he figures into the franchise's long-term plans. For his part, there was disappointment in being sent back down, but Sulzer knows its part of the game.
"It's part of the business," Sulzer says. "I just try to play well every night.
"But I like chartered planes better than bus rides, for sure."
Back-and-forth seasons are common for the best players on a minor league roster. As the parent club deals with injuries, it dips into the coffers and pulls up the best performers. It can be difficult for players, who look forward to leaving lengthy bus-rides and small locker rooms behind, to maintain confidence, but Trotz says it's all part of the process.
"Most kids have to go through the process of getting called up, not having much success -- or having some immediate success before falling off a bit -- then going back down to work on their game and regain their confidence then getting called back up for a longer time."
The focus is always on the players, but the affiliation extends beyond the roster. Nashville is also looking at the coaching, training and support staffs. Trotz's current assistant, Peter Horachek, coached the Admirals in 2002-03 before getting called up to the Nashville Bench.
Horachek's replacement, Claude Noel, took the Admirals to their first-ever championship the next season and made the playoffs in the following two campaigns before getting his trip to the NHL as an assistant coach with the Columbus Blue Jackets, where he currently is an assistant to head coach Ken Hitchcock.
His predecessors' success isn't lost on Lambert, whom Trotz says will also end up in the NHL some day.
"The goal is always to get better every day," Lambert says. "No matter if you're a player, coach or trainer. Ultimately, it should be a goal to reach the highest level."
The Predators have struggled a bit this season, fourth in the Central Division with 43 points (20-23-3) and six points behind Minnesota for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff berth.
The Admirals, meanwhile, are among the best teams in the AHL. After Tuesday's victory, they improved to 28-11-2-2; good for 60 points and first place in the West Division and 11 points ahead of second-place Iowa.
Trotz couldn't be happier with the Admirals' success; in the long run, he'll reap the benefits of their current play as the next crop of future Predators gets acclimated to Milwaukee. It's a system that's worked so far.
"This is our lifeblood," Trotz says. "We really can't match teams in terms of going after a lot of free agents. We have to be patient and put kids in a position to succeed."
