It wasn’t all a dream, right? Nope, the really did reel in , in a July 1 hat trick that stunned the hockey world. What did Preds general manager Barry Trotz feel like when he woke up Tuesday? “I was exhausted,” Trotz laughed as he began an interview with . Advertisement The next words out of Trotz’s mouth were to give credit to his staff, including his trio of AGMs: Jeff Kealty, Brian Poile and Scott Nichol.
“They just stayed on things,” Trotz said. “Things have to fall right for you, and I think they did because we stayed on top of Plan A, Plan B and Plan C. And it came down to the last minute.
” There were gasps, ooohs and ahs in the TSN studio Monday when we reported from the Insiders’ desk that the Preds were getting both Stamkos and Marchessault. Two 40-goal scorers in one fell swoop. Nuts.
Well, imagine how it felt in that Preds front office when they made that same realization. They would have been thrilled to get one of them, let alone both. “They are both players that bring a certain swagger to your group,” Trotz said.
“They’re serial winners. They’re highly competitive and they’re highly skilled.” It certainly wasn’t the plan two weeks ago.
Because two weeks ago, it wasn’t evident whether either would be available. “Well, I had a couple of targets,” Trotz said. “Whether it was a center or a top-six forward, I was also interested in (Elias) Lindholm and (Chandler) Stephenson and (Sean) Monahan.
” There’s a world in which ma.
