Botterill Hired As Seattle’s AGM

[LGR4GM]

22 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Good - Skinner trade, Drafting Dahlin, acquiring Scandella and Pommers, trading TM turd Nylander for Jokiharju, filling our pipeline with legit prospects like Cozens, Mitts, Thompson, Johnson, UPL, Pekar, Bryson, Routsalainen, Laaksonen, Portillo, and Samuelsson, hiring RK, turning the Amerks into a legit franchise, getting us out of cap hell, and acquiring Montour, Miller and Jokiharju to build a good D group.

Bad - Trading ROR (although may have been required by TP and we may end up with two good NHL players out of it long-term in Thompson and Johnson), NEVER REPLACING ROR, Scandella trade, signing Hutton, forcing Mitts into the lineup, and ultimately not making us any better on the ice (record wise) then TM.

Ultimately JB failed because he never properly replaced ROR.  However, he left the franchise in a better place then he found it.  Better D group in Buffalo, cap space which KA used to get Hall and Eakin, a viable farm team and a good prospect pool.   

Was ignoring CHL really a bad thing?  We did get Cozens, and considering how many legit prospect we have from his drafts which focused on Europe and Colleges and the abject failure the TM drafts with with tons of CHL players, I don’t think you can call the overall strategy a failure.  TM drafted 11  CHL’s and only 3 are NHLers - Reinhart (a no brainer pick and he should take  Draisatl), bust Nylander at 7 overall, and 4th liner Lemieux.  His best pick was from the SHL in Olofsson.

Jbot is a smart guy who will learn from his mistakes.  He’ll be fine in Seattle and he’ll do a good job in his next GM job.  

We were never in cap hell. That's been disproven countless times. 

24 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Good - Skinner trade, Drafting Dahlin, acquiring Scandella and Pommers, trading TM turd Nylander for Jokiharju, filling our pipeline with legit prospects like Cozens, Mitts, Thompson, Johnson, UPL, Pekar, Bryson, Routsalainen, Laaksonen, Portillo, and Samuelsson, hiring RK, turning the Amerks into a legit franchise, getting us out of cap hell, and acquiring Montour, Miller and Jokiharju to build a good D group.

Bad - Trading ROR (although may have been required by TP and we may end up with two good NHL players out of it long-term in Thompson and Johnson), NEVER REPLACING ROR, Scandella trade, signing Hutton, forcing Mitts into the lineup, and ultimately not making us any better on the ice (record wise) then TM.

Ultimately JB failed because he never properly replaced ROR.  However, he left the franchise in a better place then he found it.  Better D group in Buffalo, cap space which KA used to get Hall and Eakin, a viable farm team and a good prospect pool.   

Was ignoring CHL really a bad thing?  We did get Cozens, and considering how many legit prospect we have from his drafts which focused on Europe and Colleges and the abject failure the TM drafts with with tons of CHL players, I don’t think you can call the overall strategy a failure.  TM drafted 11  CHL’s and only 3 are NHLers - Reinhart (a no brainer pick and he should take  Draisatl), bust Nylander at 7 overall, and 4th liner Lemieux.  His best pick was from the SHL in Olofsson.

Jbot is a smart guy who will learn from his mistakes.  He’ll be fine in Seattle and he’ll do a good job in his next GM job.  

Yes. Ignoring the chl was bad. You greatly overvalued our prospect pool.

[LGR4GM]

Botteril and Murray drafted about the same. 

[Curt]

1 hour ago, tom webster said:

One of the rules I live by, you can’t blame someone for all the bad if you don’t give them credit for all the good.

I respect those that disagree, but that’s how I evaluate everything.

I give him credit for good and smart things he did.  Kahun trade, Cozens pick, UPL pick, Skinner trade, Jokiharju trade, ect.

I mean, you can say that drafting Dahlin was good, and I agree, but it’s something that anyone would have done.  I don’t count it as a win for Botterill.  It’s just a neutral.

[LGR4GM]

26 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

 filling our pipeline with legit prospects like Cozens, Mitts, Thompson, Johnson, UPL, Pekar, Bryson, Routsalainen, Laaksonen, Portillo, and Samuelsson.  

Cozens nhl player

Mitts, fringe player but I doubt him

Thompson, looks like maybe he's an nhl player but the ror trade won't ever look good. 

Johnson, 2nd pairing guy in another 2-4 years

UPL, we'll see

Portillo, we'll see

Pekar, 4th line agitator maybe

Bryson, 3rd pairing defender hopefully

Samuelson, 3rd pairing that may end up 2nd pairing with right partner

Laaksonen, fridge nhl guy

Ruotsalainen, good job pro scouts

So that's 5 players that matter and maybe 6 if a goalie pans out. Guess that's better than Murray but out of all those players, we're talking 3 impact players, 1 a draft. 

 

[GASabresIUFAN]

3 minutes ago, Curt said:

I give him credit for good and smart things he did.  Kahun trade, Cozens pick, UPL pick, Skinner trade, Jokiharju trade, ect.

I mean, you can say that drafting Dahlin was good, and I agree, but it’s something that anyone would have done.  I don’t count it as a win for Botterill.  It’s just a neutral.

It’s never cut and dried.  TM took Reinhart at 2 when Draisatl was the better player.  He also took Nylander at 7 when Sergachev was the better player and a crushing need.  In the Reinhart draft Ekblad was the consensus no. 1 pick.  Anyone think he is still best player from that draft?  Is Reinhart No. 2?   

[I-90 W]

Seemed to do well in Pitt as AGM, maybe just a good number 2 guy? 

[GASabresIUFAN]

49 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Cozens nhl player

Mitts, fringe player but I doubt him

Thompson, looks like maybe he's an nhl player but the ror trade won't ever look good. 

Johnson, 2nd pairing guy in another 2-4 years

UPL, we'll see

Portillo, we'll see

Pekar, 4th line agitator maybe

Bryson, 3rd pairing defender hopefully

Samuelson, 3rd pairing that may end up 2nd pairing with right partner

Laaksonen, fridge nhl guy

Ruotsalainen, good job pro scouts

So that's 5 players that matter and maybe 6 if a goalie pans out. Guess that's better than Murray but out of all those players, we're talking 3 impact players, 1 a draft. 

 

This is all supposition on your part.  You dismiss Pekar but even if he just becomes a 4th line player that lasts 5-6 years in the NHL that is a great pick in the 4th rd.  Where are TM’s depth players?  You dismiss all the good D prospects as only 3rd pairing or fringe guys.  Based on what?  Considering that Joker and Dahlin are the only core players in the current group, there is a ton of opportunity for all these guys and considering the speed all of them have but Samuelsson, I suspect they have better upside then you give them credit for.  Also add that if you get decent players from middle to late round picks like Bryson and Laaksonen then again you’ve done well drafting.  Again where is TM’s depth players.  The ultimate problem with your dismissal of the prospects is that they are all tracking to become NHL players.  TM gave us Eichel, Reinhart and Olofsson and nothing else.  No D, No G and no depth.

The goal of every draft is to build depth in your organization.  If you get an impact player in every draft great, but if you want to have a great organization you find at least 3 players per draft.  TM didn’t come close.  Jbot’s drafts have that potential no matter how much you dislike him.

[dudacek]

You are defaulting to comparing Botterill to Murray again.

It’s like arguing who’s better, Meszaros or Benoit?

Edited January 5, 2021 by dudacek

[Taro T]

Botterill had flaws as a GM, but he isn't going to be their GM.  He's the AGM.  If they're smart, they'll let him work to his strengths - finding/recommending young D seems to be a specialty.  Hoping they have him focus on guys ready to step into a top 2C position.  (Sorry, Darth.  When they put off joining the league for a season w/ no adjustment to the rules of who had to be exposed resulting in the Sabres going from losing Hutton at worst to a quality mjd-pairing D-man at best, they moved into Loaf territory on the likeability scale.)

Edited January 5, 2021 by Taro T

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

This is all supposition on your part.  You dismiss Pekar but even if he just becomes a 4th line player that lasts 5-6 years in the NHL that is a great pick in the 4th rd.  Where are TM’s depth players?  You dismiss all the good D prospects as only 3rd pairing or fringe guys.  Based on what?  Considering that Joker and Dahlin are the only core players in the current group, there is a ton of opportunity for all these guys and considering the speed all of them have but Samuelsson, I suspect they have better upside then you give them credit for.  Also add that if you get decent players from middle to late round picks like Bryson and Laaksonen then again you’ve done well drafting.  Again where is TM’s depth players.  The ultimate problem with your dismissal of the prospects is that they are all tracking to become NHL players.  TM gave us Eichel, Reinhart and Olofsson and nothing else.  No D, No G and no depth.

The goal of every draft is to build depth in your organization.  If you get an impact player in every draft great, but if you want to have a great organization you find at least 3 players per draft.  TM didn’t come close.  Jbot’s drafts have that potential no matter how much you dislike him.

First, TM sucked. 

Second, Botteril has 1 draft where I think we get 3 players. Even if it's 2, he was an absolute failure at assembling an NHL roster. 

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

You are defaulting to comparing Botterill to Murray again.

It’s like arguing who’s better, Meszaros or Benoit?

Yes. They both sucked. Murray appears to have drafted worse. 

Botteril, ror trade. 

[miles]

[JohnC]

4 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Good - Skinner trade, Drafting Dahlin, acquiring Scandella and Pommers, trading TM turd Nylander for Jokiharju, filling our pipeline with legit prospects like Cozens, Mitts, Thompson, Johnson, UPL, Pekar, Bryson, Routsalainen, Laaksonen, Portillo, and Samuelsson, hiring RK, turning the Amerks into a legit franchise, getting us out of cap hell, and acquiring Montour, Miller and Jokiharju to build a good D group.

Bad - Trading ROR (although may have been required by TP and we may end up with two good NHL players out of it long-term in Thompson and Johnson), NEVER REPLACING ROR, Scandella trade, signing Hutton, forcing Mitts into the lineup, and ultimately not making us any better on the ice (record wise) then TM.

Ultimately JB failed because he never properly replaced ROR.  However, he left the franchise in a better place then he found it.  Better D group in Buffalo, cap space which KA used to get Hall and Eakin, a viable farm team and a good prospect pool.   

Was ignoring CHL really a bad thing?  We did get Cozens, and considering how many legit prospect we have from his drafts which focused on Europe and Colleges and the abject failure the TM drafts with with tons of CHL players, I don’t think you can call the overall strategy a failure.  TM drafted 11  CHL’s and only 3 are NHLers - Reinhart (a no brainer pick and he should take  Draisatl), bust Nylander at 7 overall, and 4th liner Lemieux.  His best pick was from the SHL in Olofsson.

Jbot is a smart guy who will learn from his mistakes.  He’ll be fine in Seattle and he’ll do a good job in his next GM job.  

It seems that when the former GM's name is mentioned it results in a reflexive negative response. I agree with your assessment that the former GM left this organization in better place than when he took over. As you noted the ROR trade had a lingering negative effect. Not coming close to sufficiently filling that void was very damaging. However, as you noted there are strong suspicions that the owner ordered the departure resulting in not coming close to getting value back. It should also be noted that if J Botts would have agreed to the owners' desire to more thinly reshape the organization he would still be our GM. 

[Curt]

1 hour ago, miles said:

Don’t understand it, but I’m glad I saw it.  10/10 would watch again

[nfreeman]

5 hours ago, I-90 W said:

Seemed to do well in Pitt as AGM, maybe just a good number 2 guy? 

His time here sure smacked of of number 2.

[Zamboni]

Good for JB. Hopefully he’ll do well in that role.

[bunomatic]

5 year plan ?😜

[PerreaultForever]

I'm not sure JBot had any choice in the ROR situation. The deal at first didn't seem as bad as it turned out to be and I think ROR wanted out and ownership forced his hand on that 7 Million bonus so trade partners before that bonus kicked in were few and far between. He screwed up the Skinner contract for sure, but his cap management seems to have been pretty good and it's looking like maybe his draft picks not that bad either so the jury is still not out for me. 

Kraken got an experienced AGM. Likely means he gets to input but never the final say and that might be perfect for him. He can be the devil's advocate for that analytics department before they make their decisions. Good luck to him.  

[Broken Ankles]

Jason Botterill, the Matt Ellis of AGM’s.

[miles]

12 hours ago, Curt said:

Don’t understand it, but I’m glad I saw it.  10/10 would watch again

I just enjoy silly cat things. Didn't really have a good excuse otherwise 

Edited January 6, 2021 by miles

[DarthEbriate]

18 hours ago, Taro T said:

Botterill had flaws as a GM, but he isn't going to be their GM.  He's the AGM.  If they're smart, they'll let him work to his strengths - finding/recommending young D seems to be a specialty.  Hoping they have him focus on guys ready to step into a top 2C position.  (Sorry, Darth.  When they put off joining the league for a season w/ no adjustment to the rules of who had to be exposed resulting in the Sabres going from losing Hutton at worst to a quality mjd-pairing D-man at best, they moved into Loaf territory on the likeability scale.)

To be sure, that was a chump move by Seattle to push back their start year. But it also means JBot and now GM Sheevyn needed to pivot a bit (yes, difficult, perhaps -- especially since acquiring Jokiharju for Nylander still looks like a great move) to get the right roster configuration in place for this year. If that means moving Montour/Risto/Miller/Borgen for something at last year's trade deadline, maybe that's the simple fix.

That said, can you imagine this past offseason also including an expansion draft --- and this abbreviated season being the inaugural season for a franchise where fans can't go to the games? That would have been mesmerizing to watch.

3 hours ago, miles said:

I just enjoy silly cat things. Didn't really have a good excuse otherwise 

I want cat gifs, not excuses.

[miles]

5 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

I want cat gifs, not excuses.