Sabres Announce GM Jason Botterill has been Fired. Kevyn Adams Named GM

[SDS]

1 minute ago, darksabre said:

Yeah, it really sounds like it was something like:

1. Hey, the team is bad yet again and we're spending a lot of money. That doesn't make sense, let's study it. (Adams gets tasked with running this?)

2. Here are all of these things that we're spending a lot of money on (scouting, analytics, player development) that are supposed to be making us better, why aren't they?

3. People in charge of these departments get asked to answer for their failures and it turns into a real nightmare when each department's report indicts the other departments, which devolves into chaos.

4. Botterill can't give the Pegulas a restructuring plan that fixes these problems.

5. Purge.


So maybe Adams' role in all of this, and why he was installed as GM, is that he was the one who coordinated the analysis of the organization from top to bottom. Maybe he presented a plan to the Pegulas and when they took it to Botterill he balked and they turned to Adams and said "okay, you get to do your plan." 

all very reasonable and it doesn't rely on someone being Mr./Mrs. Magoo or Arya Stark. 

[Radar]

4 minutes ago, darksabre said:

Yeah, it really sounds like it was something like:

1. Hey, the team is bad yet again and we're spending a lot of money. That doesn't make sense, let's study it. (Adams gets tasked with running this?)

2. Here are all of these things that we're spending a lot of money on (scouting, analytics, player development) that are supposed to be making us better, why aren't they?

3. People in charge of these departments get asked to answer for their failures and it turns into a real nightmare when each department's report indicts the other departments, which devolves into chaos.

4. Botterill can't give the Pegulas a restructuring plan that fixes these problems.

5. Purge.


So maybe Adams' role in all of this, and why he was installed as GM, is that he was the one who coordinated the analysis of the organization from top to bottom. Maybe he presented a plan to the Pegulas and when they took it to Botterill he balked and they turned to Adams and said "okay, you get to do your plan." 

I think this very well happened. No problem with the moves overall. Still question ownership ability to get this right. Personally I wanted someone with experience but I'm willing to have this play out. Can't get much worst.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

Our own @Brawndo tells us he could have traded Risto plus for EHLERS plus and didn’t.

Maybe Chevy still likes that deal. Maybe Chevy gives him a call and Kevyn makes a different decision than Jason did.

I know if there isn’t a paper trail, I’d be asking the remnants of my staff and other GMs for reports on what might have been on the table. 

I would have personally fired his ass for the bolded.

[dudacek]

58 minutes ago, darksabre said:

Yeah, it really sounds like it was something like:

1. Hey, the team is bad yet again and we're spending a lot of money. That doesn't make sense, let's study it. (Adams gets tasked with running this?)

2. Here are all of these things that we're spending a lot of money on (scouting, analytics, player development) that are supposed to be making us better, why aren't they?

3. People in charge of these departments get asked to answer for their failures and it turns into a real nightmare when each department's report indicts the other departments, which devolves into chaos.

4. Botterill can't give the Pegulas a restructuring plan that fixes these problems.

5. Purge.


So maybe Adams' role in all of this, and why he was installed as GM, is that he was the one who coordinated the analysis of the organization from top to bottom. Maybe he presented a plan to the Pegulas and when they took it to Botterill he balked and they turned to Adams and said "okay, you get to do your plan." 

That makes a ton of sense.

The only thing that doesn’t fit is when have the Pegulas done what makes sense?

Edited June 17, 2020 by dudacek

[inkman]

1 hour ago, Crusader1969 said:

there is no way they let go of everyone if they are about to participate in the 24 team playoff. Maybe it would have happened regardless after the season was over? Though, im confident,  some jobs would have been saved.

That would have generated revenue 

[darksabre]

6 minutes ago, dudacek said:

That’s makes a ton of sense.

The only thing that doesn’t fit is when have the Pegulas done what makes sense?

Believe me, I'm just trying to rationalize things.

Maybe the one thing the Pegulas understand is charts that say "this is wasteful!"

[DarthEbriate]

1 hour ago, darksabre said:

Yeah, it really sounds like it was something like:

1. Hey, the team is bad yet again and we're spending a lot of money. That doesn't make sense, let's study it. (Vote of no confidence. Senator Adams gets tasked with running this?)

2. Here are all of these things that we're spending a lot of money on (Clones, lots of Clones scouting, analytics, player development) that are supposed to be making us better, why aren't they?

3. Jedi Masters People in charge of these departments get asked to answer for their failures and it turns into a real nightmare when each department's report indicts the other departments, which devolves into chaos.

4. Yoda Botterill can't give the Pegulas a restructuring plan that fixes these problems.

5. Great Jedi Purge.

So maybe Adams' role in all of this, and why he was installed as GM, is that he was the one who coordinated the analysis of the organization from top to bottom. Maybe he presented a plan to the Pegulas and when they took it to Botterill he balked and they turned to Adams and said "okay, you get to do your plan." 

Now, if it can ever be proven that this is true and that it was Adams' plan all along...  he's got better foresight and script-writing help than one dear Emperor Palpatine. Emperor Sheevyn Adams!

[Drag0nDan]

3 hours ago, Crusader1969 said:

I just can't get over how many jobs were lost because they played a goalie 30 times with Vision Issues. its mindblowing.

Why was JB entrenched 3 weeks ago and now everyone is fired? 

Get a good goalie tandem, upgrade 2C and lets GO!

Yeah.  2C goes a long way to helping this team.  If you can line up a team with olofsson-jack-kahun (possibly a reach to put 2 youngsters with jack, but he really does elevate the people around him) and skinner-2C-reinhart you're looking at a solid top 2 lines. 

MoJo moves to the 3rd line where he probably should be (with the ability to play up the lineup in a pinch). Not sure how else that shakes out - but you have thompson, okposo, maybe Larsson, Lazar for those final 4 spots - plus asplund/mittelstadt.

Getting 2C is going to cost them though.  Probably Risto/Montour, Mittelstadt is the starting point.  If that's the case, how do the D-pairings look after the fact?

Righties: Montour, Risto, Joki, Miller

Lefties: McCabe, Dahlin

Just now, DarthEbriate said:

Now, if it can ever be proven that this is true and that it was Adams' plan all along...  he's got better foresight and script-writing help than one dear Emperor Palpatine. Emperor Sheevyn Adams!

Oh man... i don't wanna know what happened to the younglings junior sabres....

[DarthEbriate]

16 minutes ago, Drag0nDan said:

Oh man... i don't wanna know what happened to the younglings junior sabres....

Search your feelings.

[Drag0nDan]

27 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

Search your feelings.

[PASabreFan]

5 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

@SwampD Without rewatch, he was basically just himself. He's excited, ready to go, we've got some guys who love to play. Enthusiasm/determination regardless of situation. But we haven't heard anything on role with GMKevyn, what his needs are for his lineup, etc.

Kevyn said on one of the shows this AM that Krueger is someone he can "learn from." The perfect setup would be RaKru as hockey president, Kevyn as his right hand man GM and a top notch coach. If Ralph had better assistants, we'd virtually be there already.

3 hours ago, SDS said:

If you listen to Elliot Friedman‘s podcast you’ll hear the review of the organization happened over the winter long before all of this happened regarding the virus. This is definitely overall performance based in general and fueled by financials specifically. it’s also a reason why they told multiple people they feel burned by NHL know it all’s telling them who the good hires are.

It doesn't explain the vote of confidence three weeks ago. I think something truly weird happened yesterday morning. Maybe Botterill pulled a George Costanza and tried to get his butt fired. There's a bit of info. somewhere around here that Jason was still negotiating with Chris Taylor as of yesterday. The Pegulas get wind of it, and Botterill and his scooter are out the door. "We weren't being heard."

[shrader]

4 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Kevyn said on one of the shows this AM that Krueger is someone he can "learn from." The perfect setup would be RaKru as hockey president, Kevyn as his right hand man GM and a top notch coach. If Ralph had better assistants, we'd virtually be there already.

My very early read on Adams is that we are never going to find fault in his words. This may be the first one in a while where we focus completely on his actions. In that respect, it’s very refreshing to listen to him. 

[FogBat]

10 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

Respectfully, people who cover entire sports like this dont have a clue what they're talking about.

Jason thought each of his three teams would be 15-20 points better than they were. He was going nowhere fast and this is a critical offseason. Whoever boomer Gordon is, he has about a tenth of the sabre knowledge that the least knowledgable sabrespace poster has

That may be true, but Boomer has been with the network ever since it got started back when XM Radio was its own entity. He has been known to admit when he’s wrong, if that’s worth anything. But, hey, I’d rather listen to him than He Who Shall Not Be Named.

[thewookie1]

My uncle brought up that perhaps the Pegulas know the NFL season may end up delayed or cancelled and are trying to brace for a lack of revenue streams by purging the Sabres staff. 

3 hours ago, darksabre said:

Yeah, it really sounds like it was something like:

1. Hey, the team is bad yet again and we're spending a lot of money. That doesn't make sense, let's study it. (Adams gets tasked with running this?)

2. Here are all of these things that we're spending a lot of money on (scouting, analytics, player development) that are supposed to be making us better, why aren't they?

3. People in charge of these departments get asked to answer for their failures and it turns into a real nightmare when each department's report indicts the other departments, which devolves into chaos.

4. Botterill can't give the Pegulas a restructuring plan that fixes these problems.

5. Purge.


So maybe Adams' role in all of this, and why he was installed as GM, is that he was the one who coordinated the analysis of the organization from top to bottom. Maybe he presented a plan to the Pegulas and when they took it to Botterill he balked and they turned to Adams and said "okay, you get to do your plan." 

While the Pegulas seem to be incompetent franchise runners that doesn't necessarily mean they are completely incompetent in all aspects of business. The past 9 years the Pegulas have muddled and befuddled and thrown bags of money at the Sabres to no effect. Any businessman would eventually get confused by the fact his money doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything. 

Remember in 2011 we were a small market team with potential and a GM who was actually not bad at playing with a small budget. The Pegulas came in and threw money at the team which in a basic sense should have improved everything but I think things just effectively blew up akin to the Leino contract. Essentially the team went through what most lottery winners do; oh my god I have a ton of money where can I spend it! Thus they expanded rapidly putting on a ton of new scouts and team members, signing huge contracts, etc. Then we have our first GM changeover and Tim Murray receives more money and puts band aids on things, tanks, and the Pegulas revamp the locker room. Changeover number two occurs and while differing in philosophy Botts gets money and does much of the same in replacing a guy here and there and patching up holes. The point is since the Pegulas bought the team we have effectively just poured money into the team expecting good stuff to happen, which the Pegulas are also to blame for, but its human nature to try and throw money at problems. (Just look at the government of either party) 

The pessimist in me says we are just doomed as always but besides the team leaving we are truly already in hell. 

The optimistic approach is that Adams figured out the front office was a mess of multiple GM iterations, old guard, and such and decided to gut the building down to the frame and rebuild the house. And since the Pegulas want to have less overhead and no regular GM would ever want to downsize why not give it to a guy who has the Sabres best interest in mind and experience in a myriad of roles. The one thing about Adams is he's from here and is a Buffalonian; so he has no ulterior motive for helping this team. We don't have to worry about him being overly obsessed with Ottawa or Pittsburgh. 

Step 1 of purging everything seems about done but I'd still want to go through what's left and make sure everyone is on the same page. Then you go and find a couple vets of front office stuff like a Dudley and you painstakingly rebuild the front office from the ground up. We have until about October/November for the draft so we have at least 3/4 months and a bonus month to fix everything. Krueger set up one or two entire hockey programs and Adams set up and ran the Hockey Academy so building Hockey Operations seems to be up both their alleys.  

[Thorny]

On 6/16/2020 at 9:12 AM, That Aud Smell said:

Or for Adams to focus on certain aspects of the GM job, and RaKru to focus on others.

Clarence, New York is "the bottom"?

Where does the Skinner contract fit? (Is this Okposo's last year?)

I feel like that would be part of the announcement, were it the case. But I do agree - it's a possible succession plan.

3 more left. 

On 6/16/2020 at 12:01 PM, SDS said:

Some say revolving door because they are incompetent. I'm suggesting that revolving door exists in many places because of the nature of the job and its associated failure rate. Why can't it be that Botterill was a good choice at the time of the hire, but belongs on a laundry list of people who didn't succeed?

Look, I'm well on the optimistic side of this, but we shouldn't view these things in such a black and white way. It's not that "most guys fail" so, 3 fails is par for the course. There are a wide range of delineations of success and failure, in this case. It's not that Botterill was another fail, it's the extent of his failure. 

Let's not pretend the last stretch of Sabres hockey as been par for the course bad, it's been well beyond that. 

[Thorny]

On 6/16/2020 at 12:53 PM, darksabre said:

So is the implication here that Adams was already sort of doing AGM stuff for Jason?

I wonder how long that has been going on.

Hopefully not too long, right?

[Thorny]

On 6/16/2020 at 3:48 PM, Randall Flagg said:

Chabot is gonna win Norrises.

They dont have an Eichel level forward but they will very quickly have a deep forward pool with plenty of good players. They already play a speed game that picks us apart and have demonstrated an ability to frustrate eichel more than most teams I've seen. The 4 goal game notwithstanding 

Do you have a higher view of Chabot than Dahlin? Just curious. I remember you saying you would not predict such a thing for Rasmus. 

On 6/16/2020 at 3:51 PM, Randall Flagg said:

Chabot has almost as high a ceiling as Dahlin and has demonstrated Karlsson-like impact on nhl ice already (of course, he's had 3 more years of development). Its entirely possible that he winds up a better player long term 

NM. I'm guessing that means you still keep Dahlin straight up. 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Thorny

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, shrader said:

My very early read on Adams is that we are never going to find fault in his words. This may be the first one in a while where we focus completely on his actions. In that respect, it’s very refreshing to listen to him. 

I am here. I liked what Adams has said and he's good to listen to. I am immensely curious if he can actually make the needed changes. 

[Randall Flagg]

1 minute ago, Thorny said:

Do you have a higher view of Chabot than Dahlin? Just curious. I remember you saying you would not predict such a thing for Rasmus. 

NM. I'm guessing that means you still keep Dahlin straight up. 

I would keep Dahlin over Chabot yeah. But I think Chabot is in the tier of prospect that you'd call a young franchise D cornerstone with Dahlin and Makar and likely Hughes and possibley Heiskanen. 

I think Chabot plays a kind of game geared towards dropping people's jaws, a la Karlsson, and I think that's gonna win him some trophies. His skating and puck skills are so strong that his defensive game will be overlooked. He's definitely a different player than Dahlin. Way faster, not as cerebral, more prone to extreme plays on both ends of the spectrum

[LGR4GM]

Dahlin is fast when he wants to be, that's definitely a different approach to Chabot. I think calling the way Dahlin does thing as cerebral makes a lot of sense, if he's doing something it serves a future purpose. 

[Thorny]

5 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I would keep Dahlin over Chabot yeah. But I think Chabot is in the tier of prospect that you'd call a young franchise D cornerstone with Dahlin and Makar and likely Hughes and possibley Heiskanen. 

I think Chabot plays a kind of game geared towards dropping people's jaws, a la Karlsson, and I think that's gonna win him some trophies. His skating and puck skills are so strong that his defensive game will be overlooked. He's definitely a different player than Dahlin. Way faster, not as cerebral, more prone to extreme plays on both ends of the spectrum

I agree, with the caveat that I've seen as crazy if not crazier plays from Dahlin in the offensive zone. Jaw dropping dangles that we've failed to cash on. That sort of flash shows up less with Dahlin, as of now, to your point, but his "wow" plays have, in the moment, got me out of my seat as much or more than Eichel's individual dangles. 

I think with confidence we'll see it more. In fact, I know we will. 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Thorny

[Thorny]

12 hours ago, darksabre said:

I mean, I don't really think Pilut was that good, but I just had a hunch that after all the gnashing of teeth on Sabres Twitter yesterday about Adams that he was going to come out and preach analytics and Sabres Twitter would do an immediate about-face and become his greatest acolytes.

It didn't happen. Sabres twitter has far less optimism than this place and always has. This place is for more balanced in terms of range of views. Regardless of what a certain individual said. 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Thorny

[Thorny]

12 hours ago, darksabre said:

I'm even more curious now about what Adams' role really was leading up to this.

He seems to know way more about the Sabres inner workings than you would expect him to given his known roles in the org.

Curiouser and curiouser...

At least we know there's no excuse for an "evaluation year" being in the cards.

[Thorny]

12 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

okay, I want to do the other one... 

 

This is still a positive quote tho! I use it all the time. 

12 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

So we have a guy as GM who spied on this colleagues to get his job.  Nice.  I'm sure that will breed confidence within the organization.

Sounds like we just hired Grima Wormtongue.

 

Speaking of LOTR, this was LOL funny. 

[darksabre]

16 minutes ago, Thorny said:

It didn't happen. Sabres twitter has far less optimism than this place and always has. This place is for more balanced in terms of range of views. Regardless of what a certain individual said. 

I'm pretty surprised at how viscerally angry Sabres Twitter is. I expected indifference, but I think their hatred of the Pegulas is much stronger.