Are there major changes coming this summer and who will make them?

[JohnC]

4 minutes ago, Flashsabre said:

That why the Jarmo hiring gives me a little bit of hope that Terry is realizing what a mess this is.

A better approach would have been to have KA working for Jarmo. In general, I'm happy/encouraged with the new staff addition. I'm not sure how much authority he has. Giving advice is different from exercising authority. 

[Pimlach]

1 hour ago, Flashsabre said:

Go back and watch the Blue and Gold of when he was hired. He states he doesn’t know what he’s doing so he has a little book with him and he says he asks a lot of questions and writes the answers down in the book. It was embarrassing at the time and hasn’t improved. 

I do not recall this from Adams but I have seen this recently in real life and it is not good for anyone.   An inexperienced and unqualified person is running a $375M project that a company I consult for has a contract with. 

In meetings he asks us to repeat things over and over again, he constantly stops the meeting and paraphrase's what was just said, then he writes it all down so he can repeat it up his leadership chain.  He is not well versed in any part of this business so he does this for survival and we comply as he is the customer and a pretty good guy and well intended person too.  I do worry about his ability to correctly answer follow up questions. 

One morning he called me for help, even though I contract through his supplier.  He wanted me to call him back later to explain something in more detail for him.  When I did call him back he was working from home, and there were two babies crying loudly.   He was taking take of them while asking me to help him figure out some pretty basic things.   His stress was going through the roof.  

Sometimes in business we identify smart people, or people we "like", and we move them along too fast and we hurt them in the long run. 

Adams has been a GM for 5 years and he was most likely fed with a gigantic firehose.  Adams is like this young manager that I know.   He was never a scout, only an assistant coach for 1 year, never worked player personnel, never worked in the AHL, never an AGM, never even held a hockey operations job  at all,  and his first job as GM was to conduct a large layoff of his staff and slowly (over several years) rebuild it.    

So we can place a lot of the blame on Adams for the teams recent performance, and he appears to be stubborn on doing it his way,  but the root cause of the problem is the guy above Adams.  The hiring of Staal and Jarmo seem to be steps to get him some help him.   With one year on his contract the stakes should be high for him and his staff.  But this is the Sabres under Pegula, so maybe they are not.  

[JohnC]

19 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

I do not recall this from Adams but I have seen this recently in real life and it is not good for anyone.   An inexperienced and unqualified person is running a $375M project that a company I consult for has a contract with. 

In meetings he asks us to repeat things over and over again, he constantly stops the meeting and paraphrase's what was just said, then he writes it all down so he can repeat it up his leadership chain.  He is not well versed in any part of this business so he does this for survival and we comply as he is the customer and a pretty good guy and well intended person too.  I do worry about his ability to correctly answer follow up questions. 

One morning he called me for help, even though I contract through his supplier.  He wanted me to call him back later to explain something in more detail for him.  When I did call him back he was working from home, and there were two babies crying loudly.   He was taking take of them while asking me to help him figure out some pretty basic things.   His stress was going through the roof.  

Sometimes in business we identify smart people, or people we "like", and we move them along too fast and we hurt them in the long run. 

Adams has been a GM for 5 years and he was most likely fed with a gigantic firehose.  Adams is like this young manager that I know.   He was never a scout, only an assistant coach for 1 year, never worked player personnel, never worked in the AHL, never an AGM, never even held a hockey operations job  at all,  and his first job as GM was to conduct a large layoff of his staff and slowly (over several years) rebuild it.    

So we can place a lot of the blame on Adams for the teams recent performance, and he appears to be stubborn on doing it his way,  but the root cause of the problem is the guy above Adams.  The hiring of Staal and Jarmo seem to be steps to get him some help him.   With one year on his contract the stakes should be high for him and his staff.  But this is the Sabres under Pegula, so maybe they are not.  

The inquisitive person you described who was managing a project that was overwhelming him is a person I admire. He had enough self-awareness to recognize his limitations and seek help to get him through the project. He didn't allow his ego to fake his way through a project that was too much for him to handle alone. Compare that to Pegula and KA? (As you pointed noted.) 

[JohnC]

2 hours ago, GoPuckYourself said:

Doing nothing when your team loses 13 games in a row is inexcusable. Nobody can tell me otherwise, your job as a GM is to put together a winning roster. You had to know losing 13 games would derail your entire season, his excuse was nobody was willing to come here yet we traded Cozens for Norris at the deadline.
Adams is terrible at his job and now we have to suffer another season with this clown.

In season trades are more challenging to do than offseason deals. KA's biggest mistake was in assessing his roster before it played its first game. When you poorly assess and assemble a roster you are in for a tough season. 

[PerreaultForever]

8 hours ago, JohnC said:

The GM did make a number of helpful deals last offseason. Some of them very good, such as getting McCleod  and Zucker. However, he didn’t do enough. Now, there is even more pressure to act. The billboard is flashing. Not too difficult to get the message. 

Oh please, stop. He did not make the team any better than it was. He did not address the major weaknesses and he bet solely on Ruff elevating them and his signings stepping up. Ruff didn't, Cozens didn't, Byram underwhelmed. Nothing wrong with the McLeod trade but ultimately with Cozens sucking that did not fill the hole he created trading away Mittlestadt. Malentstyn isn't anything and thus no better than Girgensens, probably worse. Lafferty and Aube Kubul were money wasted and didn't upgrade Okposo. The roster was basically the same. 

[Pimlach]

2 hours ago, JohnC said:

The inquisitive person you described who was managing a project that was overwhelming him is a person I admire. He had enough self-awareness to recognize his limitations and seek help to get him through the project. He didn't allow his ego to fake his way through a project that was too much for him to handle alone. Compare that to Pegula and KA? (As you pointed noted.) 

The young man is worthy of helping and my phone is open.  

The point I’m making is Adams was in a similar position to this young man just 4 and 5 years ago.  

Qualified or not at the time he took the GM position, he was being asked to do perform a very difficult job with little experience to draw from and only a few others to help.  Climbing fast can be painful.  

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, PerreaultForever said:

Oh please, stop. He did not make the team any better than it was. He did not address the major weaknesses and he bet solely on Ruff elevating them and his signings stepping up. Ruff didn't, Cozens didn't, Byram underwhelmed. Nothing wrong with the McLeod trade but ultimately with Cozens sucking that did not fill the hole he created trading away Mittlestadt. Malentstyn isn't anything and thus no better than Girgensens, probably worse. Lafferty and Aube Kubul were money wasted and didn't upgrade Okposo. The roster was basically the same. 

Yep.  He did make some good moves but needed to make so many additional moves to get a critical mass of things aligned correctly and he never came close to that.

Had EVERYTHING gone right, the team might've (heck, they would've) snuck into the playoffs.  In the real world everything doesn't go right and from the moment Dahlin tweaked his back 5 minutes after stepping onto the ice on the 1st day of TC things already weren't going right.  When he was out for ~10 games, the season was doomed.

Had he done more to address the goaltending; had he gotten Power a legit partner LAST year; had he/Ruff brought in competent ACs; had he been able to bring in say 1 more Zucker and 1 more Greenway rather than Lafferty and Aube-Kubel by spending some of the money he saved by punting Skinner; THEN MAYBE they could've survived Dahlin's injuries.  But he didn't.

[JohnC]

5 minutes ago, GoPuckYourself said:

He was qualified enough to deal Reinhart and Eichel, he knows how to pick up a telephone and dial another GM's number, he's had 6 seasons to figure it out, how you can use this as an excuse is beyond me. 

What excuse are you talking about? 

[GoPuckYourself]

1 minute ago, JohnC said:

What excuse are you talking about? 

I think I grabbed the wrong quote my bad.

[JohnC]

2 hours ago, Pimlach said:

The young man is worthy of helping and my phone is open.  

The point I’m making is Adams was in a similar position to this young man just 4 and 5 years ago.  

Qualified or not at the time he took the GM position, he was being asked to do perform a very difficult job with little experience to draw from and only a few others to help.  Climbing fast can be painful.  

Even the smartest GMs in the business are wise enough to seek advice before making consequential decisions. Very office the best advice is a contrarian advice because it forces you to look at an issue from a different perspective. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room to make the best decisions. Surrounding yourself with talent and an ability to listen to others can serve you well.