How will David Poile's Predators legacy be remembered? His final days gave me a glimpse

David Poile's phone rang at 10:08 a.m. Friday.

He was sitting in a conference room inside Bridgestone Arena during his final day of work after 25 years as the Nashville Predators' only general manager. After 42 years in the NHL as GM, the longest tenure in the history of the league.

It was the day after the NHL Draft and going-away party for Poile wrapped up in the same building. It was the day before free agency began.

It was Poile's last hurrah before retirement. To him, it was just another day.

"I really have to take this," Poile said, his eyes studying the caller ID on his phone. "Sorry."

Poile, dressed in dark blue slacks and a striped polo shirt, disappeared through a set of glass doors.

Not even five minutes earlier, Poile began his conversation with The Tennessean with a caveat: "You want to talk about my career. My career is still going on," he said.

The winningest general manager the NHL ever has seen, the U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer, the man who has mentored so many during his five decades in the game, didn't become those things by taking days off.

Those will come soon enough. On this day, like most every other day for the last 51 years, there was work to be done, chief among the tasks was finalizing a buyout of forward Matt Duchene's contract.

"I know in the weeks to come, when you start going down memory lane, I'll be like, 'You gotta be kidding. How cool is this?'" Poile said.

Celebrate good times

David Poile leaned against a table at Skydeck, which overlooks Broadway, on Thursday afternoon. His back was to the arena he's called home since 1997. His eyes were concentrated in front of him, where his final NHL Draft class walked across a stage.

His wife Elizabeth, the woman he met when they were 13 years old, handed him a tall can of Michelob Ultra.

"They don't have any wine," she said, almost apologetically.

Wine is Poile's favorite.

Nonetheless, Poile lifted the can of beer to his lips and sipped from it, Elizabeth by his side at a post-draft celebration for team employees and family. On July 4, the couple will celebrate their 52nd wedding anniversary.

"People refer to it as Independence Day," he said. "I refer to it as lost-my-independence day."

The man who finished his career with a 1,533-1,172-184-178 record as a GM, including 939-718-60-178 with the Predators, was soaking in the moment. He hadn't done that much since announcing on Feb. 26 he would retire after the season.

"I think 51 years is long enough," Elizabeth said. "He loves his job. He loves every bit of it. He loves the work. He loves the people. I think he wants to savor every minute of it until it's over. Then we can sit back and talk about it on the beach."

FITTING FAREWELL: How former Predators star sent retiring GM David Poile out with standing ovation at NHL Draft

WHEN THEY WERE KIDS As Predators' David Poile braces for retirement, his wife reveals their love story

Q&A: 7 questions with Nashville Predators GM David Poile, from retirement to Bill Haslam transition

The man who made more trades and drafted more players than anyone in league history smiled as the years circled through his mind.

Going out in style

Just a couple of hours before the celebration across the street from Bridgestone, Poile made the final draft pick of his career.

The man Poile hired to be the Predators' first coach and next general manager — Barry Trotz — conspired with the first captain of the Predators — New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald — to give the only general manager in franchise history a proper sendoff.

Without Poile knowing, Trotz and Fitzgerald agreed to a deal that gave the Predators the Devils' seventh-round pick. When Poile found out about the deal, he initially protested.

"He told me, 'No, no, no!' I already have a deal in place," Trotz said. "Then I think he realized it."

Just before Poile announced the pick, he and Fitzgerald embraced. He, Poile and Trotz posed for a picture.

Poile's son and Predators assistant general manager Brian Poile and the team's new coach Andrew Brunette had a front-row seat for the moment at the Predators' draft table.

"Thank you to the game of hockey for such a wonderful life," Poile said. "I would never want to change anything. So, for my last pick of all time, this is the player: Aiden Fink, from Brooks. Thanks, everybody."

Every executive from every team on the floor, every fan in the stands, stood and applauded.

"That's his legacy," Brian Poile said. "All the different people in hockey that he's made some small or big impact on will now hopefully bring him his legacy."

Poile said Friday he'd watched a video clip of the moment three times.

"How would you like your retirement to be announced, I guess?" Poile asked rhetorically. "That's awesome. Unbelievable moment. Unforgettable moment. The symmetry that was there ... "

From last pick to first

The radio was how Tim Bergland learned he'd been drafted by David Poile.

The date was June 8, 1983, Poile's first draft as a general manager in the first of the 15 seasons he spent in that job with the Washington Capitals. They didn't pick until the fourth round, when Poile used the 75th overall selection on an 18-year-old right winger from Crookston, Minnesota.

At the time, Bergland was driving to the University of Minnesota to prepare for his first year of college. There were no cell phones, no way to follow the draft.

"I heard that I was the first Minnesota kid taken in the draft," Bergland said.

Poile finally tracked down Bergland by phone at his aunt's house.

"I'm a dumb guy in terms of the National Hockey League," said Bergland, who played 182 games over five seasons, including two stints with the Capitals. "You knew the big players and stuff, but I didn't know David's background well."

Because of NCAA rules at the time, there wasn't much contact between the two for the next four years. But after they met, there were some moments.

Bergland recalled tripping down some steps while exiting a team bus, and landing right in front of Poile after a charter flight during his rookie season.

"You're embarrassed as hell," Bergland said. "I ended up losing my toenail ... in the heat of the playoffs."

Years later, Bergland said, he mistook Poile for a former coach he had during a chance encounter at a Blackhawks game in Chicago.

"Ever since I knew him he had kind of that salt-and-pepper hair," Bergland said. "I hadn't seen him in a couple of years. So he just says, 'Hi.' And I thought he was my first coach. ... He had brown hair and I thought it was him, so I called him Larry."

Bergland said he didn't realize he was Poile's first draft pick until Friday, Poile's last day on the job.

"Not until you brought it up," he said. "I'm going to have to start using that."

Taking a chance on Nashville

Norman "Bud" Poile wasn't thrilled when his son decided he was moving to Nashville to be the general manager of an expansion team, a feat Bud pulled off with the Philadelphia Flyers and Vancouver Canucks.

When it came to his son, the Hockey Hall of Famer who played 311 games in seven seasons in the NHL, wanted better. He encouraged David to take the offer to be GM from the Toronto Maple Leafs rather than go to a nontraditional hockey market where the game seemed foreign.

ESTES: A fun NHL Draft night for the host Nashville Predators went without a big catch

ROCK ON: How Nashville Predators honored David Poile with Gibson guitar to open 2023 NHL Draft

"He didn't understand it at all," Poile said. "An existing team versus an expansion team. I just reminded him that I watched him when he started with expansion teams. I saw the excitement.

"I said whatever happens in Nashville is going to have my fingerprints all over it — for good or for bad. I had the belief I could do it."

Poile signed a contract that included a "must live in Nashville clause," something he didn't understand because Nashville was the only place he wanted to live. He began building a team. He continued living his dream.

Nashville, he said, will always be home.

Like fathers, like sons

Brian Poile spent a healthy part of his childhood tagging along with his father. On road trips. In locker rooms after wins. In locker rooms after losses. To drafts.

David Poile did the same with his father, whose NHL playing career ended in 1950, the year Poile was born but who remained in the game for many years after.

"He could talk it, he could work it 24/7," said Poile, who inducted his father into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder of the game in 1990.

He still has the speech he wrote.

Brian Poile can relate. He's worked with his father since 2010, when he was hired as director of hockey operations.

It was a hiring David Poile didn't take lightly.

"Nor did Brian," Poile said. "When I started it wasn't easy for me. Every time I was introduced, it was 'Bud's boy, Bud's boy.' "

"David's boy" continues to make a name for himself in that world. He made sure to spend some of this past week, though, soaking in the lasting impact his father has made.

"To see a high-ranking executive or a GM on another team ... come up to my dad in almost a father-like way or a mentor-like way, to see them respect him and say thank you for whatever he did for them behind the scenes that we don't know about, that was special," Brian Poile said. "That's his legacy."

The reason for 'Smashville'

More than any of the hundreds of draft picks Poile made in his career, none were a bigger steal than Pekka Rinne.

He drafted Rinne, the man with a statue in front of Bridgestone, whose retired number hangs from the rafters inside, in the eighth round of the 2004 draft.

Rinne returned to Nashville for Poile's final week on the job. He credited him with making his career. He thinks Poile should have a statue right alongside his.

"I hope so," Rinne said during the post-draft celebration, Poile standing just out of earshot. "If I have a statue, David should have a statue double the size. I don't think anybody's had a bigger impact on Nashville hockey than David Poile."

Joining Rinne at the celebration were people such as future team owner Bill Haslam, Trotz, Brunette, Pete Weber, Terry Crisp and countless Predators employees, some of whom Poile no doubt hocked chocolate from over the years.

"He knows more people in the organization because of chocolate," Predators president and CEO Sean Henry said. "He can tell you everyone's desk who has chocolate on it and who doesn't. There are people in the far reaches of the building who know David better than people who sit right next to him who have worked with him for 20 or 30 years, because they have chocolate at their desk."

No regrets

Back in that conference room inside Bridgestone on Friday, Poile returned from his call and put his phone on silent.

He talked about the good times and bad of the last 26 years — from the team almost moving to Canada in 2007 to the team's Stanley Cup Final appearance 10 years later.

"The picture is the Stanley Cup Final, looking out on Broadway," Poile said. "That's the picture I have in my head. That's my definition of why I came to Nashville."

Poile's resume is pretty much unparalleled.

The man who began his NHL career in 1972 as an administrative assistant with the Atlanta Flames, who served as GM for both the U.S. men's national team and the 2014 Olympic team, the man who lost sight in his right eye after taking a puck to the face during a morning skate in Minnesota, is missing one thing, though.

He never won a Stanley Cup.

"It would be disingenuous to say it didn't bother me," Poile said. "How do I tell you it doesn't bother me? Maybe I did some things that are actually better than winning the Stanley Cup.

"Believe me, I'd like to have one. I'd love to come in here and have this ring and put my hand up like that with my ring on it," he said while banging his left hand on the table. "I'd love to do that. I don't think that defines me. I actually do have another life out of hockey. I've got to demonstrate that a little more."

He'll have his chance soon enough. He and Elizabeth will go to their Florida home for a few weeks. Maybe even plan that cruise they've always wanted to go on. In retirement he'll serve as an advisor for the Predators.

For the first time in more than 50 years, David Poile's days won't be planned to the minute.

"There were some people, they win at all costs," said Poile, who was NHL General Manager of the Year in 2017. "I don't think I was that. I'm proud of that. I cared about the game more."

Forty-seven minutes after taking one of his final phone calls as GM of the Nashville Predators, David Poile disappeared through those same glass doors again, his future on hold until his final day on the job was done.

"Who knows," he said. "I might be here till midnight tonight."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How David Poile went into Predators retirement with a fitting hurrah