Ex-Islanders coach Barry Trotz spends time with longtime assistant Lane Lambert
Predators GM Barry Trotz walks down from the stands before an NHL game between the Rangers and the Predators at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 19, 2023. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Barry Trotz thought for a bit before remembering the last time he and his longtime lieutenant, Lane Lambert, were on opposite sides for a game.
“It would be in junior hockey when I was in Regina and he was in Saskatoon,” said Trotz, in his first season as the Predators’ general manager after coaching the Islanders from 2018-22. “I would have been, probably, 19 and he would have been 17 at the time. So that’s a long time, I’m 61. That’s a lot of water that’s gone under the bridge.”
The Islanders opened a four-game road trip with a 3-1 loss to the Predators on Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena, marking Trotz’s first game against his former club since president/general manager Lou Lamoriello fired him.
The ever-affable and always- chatty Trotz spent plenty of time catching up with Lambert and other Islanders staffers after the team’s morning skate.
“There’s people that you’ve built relationships with and gone through the good times and some bad times together,” said Trotz, a first-time GM after coaching the Predators, Capitals and Islanders starting in 1998. “My time on the Island was fantastic. Just as my time in Washington was fantastic. It’s another chapter in your life. This is a new chapter for me.”
Lambert served as an assistant coach under Trotz with the Predators from 2011-14 and the Capitals from 2014-18 — they led the Capitals to the franchise’s only Stanley Cup in 2018 — before coming to the Islanders with Trotz as the associate coach.
Lambert succeeded his old boss after Lamoriello said the Islanders needed a “new voice” guiding them.
“I was with him for 11-plus years,” Lambert said. “I used to call him ‘Coach Barry.’ Now I call him ‘GM Barry.’ ”
Lambert and Trotz still talk, but some hockey topics necessarily are off-limits.
“They’re the opponent,” Lambert said. “We talk about families and things like that. The hockey part is sort of secondary in terms of that. We’re not on the same bench now.
“We also spent a lot of time together family-wise. I don’t know that it’s really that weird of an adjustment. We can talk generically about hockey and we certainly do that too.”
Isles files
Brock Nelson logged 17:40 with two shots in his 800th NHL game . . . Mathew Barzal had his point streak snapped at five games . . . Goalie Semyon Varlamov (injured reserve/lower body), defensemen Ryan Pulock (long-term injured reserve/lower body) and Robert Bortuzzo (IR/lower body) and center Casey Cizikas (week-to-week/lower body) did not travel.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.
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