The U2 concert at Sphere in Las Vegas was going to go on Sunday with or without the Nashville Predators and their staff.

Because general manager Barry Trotz and coach Andrew Brunette still hadn't found what they were looking for from their team last week, including during Thursday's 9-2 loss to the Dallas Stars at Bridgestone Arena, the show went on without them.

That made Sunday anything but a beautiful day for the team. Instead of spending the off day in Vegas at the concert, the Predators spent the off day in Nashville following its 5-2 victory Saturday against the Blues in St. Louis.

The team flew to Vegas on Monday morning, ahead of Tuesday night's game.

Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman said Monday on his "32 Thoughts" podcast that Trotz and Brunette were behind the decision to cancel the trip, which reportedly had been in the works for a while. Brunette hinted at his frustrations following the loss to the Stars in which former Predators forward Matt Duchene scored two goals.

Brunette ran the team hard during practice Friday before the team departed for St. Louis.

"We’re having trouble getting our mind around what’s important, and that’s hockey," he said. "It’s not everything else that goes around hockey . . . Our mind has to be on the game; it can’t be on our vacations."

Turns out he wasn't talking about the vacations his players had just taken during the All-Star break. He was talking about the Vegas trip. Two days earlier, after a loss to the New Jersey Devils, Brunette said his team wasn't "that interested to be in the playoffs."

When asked Friday by Penalty Box Radio's Alex Daugherty about rumors that the U2 trip had been canceled, Predators players said he'd "have to ask the team."

Friedman called it "a big, big deal internally." He said Trotz told him the team's "standards had slipped below expectation" and that a message had to be sent not only to the players but the fans, with whom the optics of such an outing could be bad.

"Our minds haven't been right since the break," Brunette said after Friday's practice. "It's not been us the last three games.

"You can sense when you're slipping. And I sensed it. . . . We didn't come ready to practice Monday and it's kind of carried us through the week."

Predators defenseman and alternate captain Ryan McDonagh told The Tennessean on Friday that he, fellow alternate captain Ryan O'Reilly and captain Roman Josi shouldered a bulk of the blame for the team's mindset.

"For sure it's on the leaders," he said. "It's on everybody, but certainly the leaders in the way we handle it and the way we play.

"Our intensity definitely slipped the last few games. It's on us veterans and leaders to talk about being a consummate pro."

Maybe next time U2 happens in Vegas, the Predators will stay in Vegas.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How a U2 concert was used to send a message to Nashville Predators