Jason Botterill: Is he a good or bad GM?

[woods-racer]

10 minutes ago, SHAAAUGHT!!! said:

 Excellent analysis.  I would add the moves and contracts JBots has negotiated gives us the cap space to sign someone like Skinner to a long-term deal (yes Berglund did help us here).  He also positioned the team to have a flexible and manageable salary structure 3-6 years from now.  We have 4 skaters on ELCs (Dahlin, Middlestat, Tage, Pilut) that all have the potential to be the cornerstones of this team when Jack, Sam, Skinner, start to fade.  We also have 4 1st round picks over the next two years, which will usher in another 1-3 potential cornerstones on ELCs.  

The team is better this year, and is poised to get even better going forward.  I just hope JBot evaluates talent the same way he manages the cap - like a boss. 

I agree.

It's not what has he done, because so far he's been *good*, but not all worldly as fair as GM's go.. A few missed shots and a few nice pickups. Rochester has some cans on the shelf that look tasty.

His true test comes in the next 2 years. His legacy will be determined on how well he drafts over the next 2 draft classes. 

Edited January 30, 2019 by woods-racer

[dudacek]

10 minutes ago, woods-racer said:

I agree.

It's not what has he done, because so far he's been *good*, but not all worldly as fair as GM's go.. A few missed shots and a few nice pickups. Rochester has some cans on the shelf that look tasty.

His true test comes in the next 2 years. His legacy will be determined on how well he drafts over the next 2 draft classes. 

I think his legacy is determined by how he complements Jack and Rasmus, regardless of where the players come from.

He’s been dealt a rare pair of aces to start. He needs to take advantage.

[woods-racer]

 

9 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I think his legacy is determined by how he complements Jack and Rasmus, regardless of where the players come from.

He’s been dealt a rare pair of aces to start. He needs to take advantage.

 

There is a chance obviously that he can acquire top end talent that compliments he's view of what a SC team should look like (Skinner).

But.

ELC's are needed in order to lengthen the period of time that gets multiple chances to win the SC.  Free agents are sprinkles on the cup cake, the true ingredients will come through the draft and up through Rochester.

[dudacek]

29 minutes ago, woods-racer said:

 

 

There is a chance obviously that he can acquire top end talent that compliments he's view of what a SC team should look like (Skinner).

But.

ELC's are needed in order to lengthen the period of time that gets multiple chances to win the SC.  Free agents are sprinkles on the cup cake, the true ingredients will come through the draft and up through Rochester.

Or trades. He’s dumped three pieces of Murray’s core - Lehner, Kane, O’Reilly - and added two of his own, Dahlin and Skinner.

Time will tell if the returns (Tage, two firsts), or MIttelstadt, or his own first this year, or other picks, will translate into more core pieces.

[LTS]

4 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Blatantly untrue.

Philly traded Richards because he had a long deal and they got into trouble after they dumped all the money on  Bryzgalov. It was financial issues, not culture issues. 

As for Kane, he was drafted as the glory boy but played his way down the roster as he turned into a problem child. Winnipeg is where they are due to good trades and good drafting like Kyle Connor for example. 

If JBot is a bad GM for you, Murray must have been what, Satan?   You want the definition of a bad GM that's your poster boy. Colin White would have looked pretty good in the blue and gold or better yet Brock Boeser or even Konecny. Trading away your roster for draft picks and then giving away those draft picks is the definition of a bad GM. Worst GM EVER.

Do you mean worst Sabres GM ever?

Because I mean.. Chiarelli.

[jame]

5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Blatantly untrue.

Philly traded Richards because he had a long deal and they got into trouble after they dumped all the money on  Bryzgalov. It was financial issues, not culture issues. 

As for Kane, he was drafted as the glory boy but played his way down the roster as he turned into a problem child. Winnipeg is where they are due to good trades and good drafting like Kyle Connor for example. 

If JBot is a bad GM for you, Murray must have been what, Satan?   You want the definition of a bad GM that's your poster boy. Colin White would have looked pretty good in the blue and gold or better yet Brock Boeser or even Konecny. Trading away your roster for draft picks and then giving away those draft picks is the definition of a bad GM. Worst GM EVER.

I'm sorry, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.

There were 3 primary reasons that led to the Richards/Carter trade. It was about drinking/partying and it's impact on their relationship with Pronger, the rest of the lockerroom, and ultimately Laviolette. First, they openly rebuffed Laviolette's "dry island" policy, which led to the lockerroom turning to Pronger for leadership, which led Pronger and Laviolette to go to management/ownership and insist they had to be traded. This is all well documented, reported on, and you can dig in to the details yourself.

Philly didn't trade their captain and two star players because of Ilya Bryzgalov's contract... holy moly where'd you get that idea. They dumped the money on Bryzgalov right AFTER they trade Richards/Carter....

Yes, Murray failed. The only caveat I'll stick with in the Murray/Botts discussion is that Murray had the significantly more difficult job.

Edited January 31, 2019 by jame

[jame]

6 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Philly hasn't been a disaster.  They made the playoffs and advanced the season after the trade, and have made the playoffs 4 times in the 7 seasons since the trade.  And the Kings terminated Richards' contract the first chance they got (and ended up having to settle with Richards for doing so) -- were they stupid for dumping talent to improve culture?

As for Kane -- the Jets missed the playoffs for 3 seasons in a row before trading him, then made the playoffs immediately after trading him (then missed for 2 more seasons, then made the conf. finals).  So maybe dumping him did improve their culture.  And if your reference to "cratering their lineup" is meant to imply that trading ROR has cratered the Sabres' lineup -- I don't see how you can assert this when the Sabres are about a million times better than they were last year.

Do you or do you not agree that the Sabres underachieved last year? 

I would call going from the Stanley Cup finals to "making the playoffs 4 of the next 7 years" a disaster....

You think the Sabres are "a million" times better? I think Botts did a great job fixing his mistakes from year one in terms of Goaltending and Defensive Depth... to go along with adding speed/skill to the wings. But at the same time, he cratered the effectiveness of the lineup by subtracting ROR. So while the 10 game winning streak masks a lot... he certainly didn't massively improve the team. He took two very important steps forward, and one massive step backwards.

I do not think the Sabres underachieved last year... I think Botts put a terrible team around young core. Going in to a season with Tennyson, Griffith, Moulson, Nolan, Josefson, Pouliot, Chad Johnson on the 23 man roster.... is embarrassing. There's a reason none of them are in the NHL today (Did Chad Johnson get picked up somewhere?

Edited January 31, 2019 by jame

[jame]

5 hours ago, RonHextallsShoulderPads said:

Who hurt you?

Darius Kasparaitis

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, jame said:

I'm sorry, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.

There were 3 primary reasons that led to the Richards/Carter trade. It was about drinking/partying and it's impact on their relationship with Pronger, the rest of the lockerroom, and ultimately Laviolette. First, they openly rebuffed Laviolette's "dry island" policy, which led to the lockerroom turning to Pronger for leadership, which led Pronger and Laviolette to go to management/ownership and insist they had to be traded. This is all well documented, reported on, and you can dig in to the details yourself.

Philly didn't trade their captain and two star players because of Ilya Bryzgalov's contract... holy moly where'd you get that idea. They dumped the money on Bryzgalov right AFTER they trade Richards/Carter....

Yes, Murray failed. The only caveat I'll stick with in the Murray/Botts discussion is that Murray had the significantly more difficult job.

You are one arrogant m*f*

Prove your claim.  

(fyi they cleared the money so that they could sign him)

[PerreaultForever]

4 hours ago, LTS said:

Do you mean worst Sabres GM ever?

Because I mean.. Chiarelli.

Yes, worst Sabres GM ever. There have been others in the league just as bad or maybe worse. Chiarelli is one. Holmgren was one. Jim Devallano was another one imo. Married the daughter if I remember correctly so never got fired and got bumped upstairs later. Everyone who worked for Harold Ballard. The list goes on and on, but for the Sabres, I give it to Murray hands down. 

[nfreeman]

10 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

You are one arrogant m*f*

Prove your claim.  

(fyi they cleared the money so that they could sign him)

OK.  Time to take it down a notch. 

FWIW, my recollection on this jibes with jame's -- but neither of you have bothered to post any links in support of your factual assertions here.

[Gatorman0519]

10 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Yes, worst Sabres GM ever. There have been others in the league just as bad or maybe worse. Chiarelli is one. Holmgren was one. Jim Devallano was another one imo. Married the daughter if I remember correctly so never got fired and got bumped upstairs later. Everyone who worked for Harold Ballard. The list goes on and on, but for the Sabres, I give it to Murray hands down. 

Yeah the Trade for Lehrner and Fashing made me want to jump off a bridge lol 

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

15 hours ago, jame said:

I'm sorry, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.

There were 3 primary reasons that led to the Richards/Carter trade. It was about drinking/partying and it's impact on their relationship with Pronger, the rest of the lockerroom, and ultimately Laviolette. First, they openly rebuffed Laviolette's "dry island" policy, which led to the lockerroom turning to Pronger for leadership, which led Pronger and Laviolette to go to management/ownership and insist they had to be traded. This is all well documented, reported on, and you can dig in to the details yourself.

Philly didn't trade their captain and two star players because of Ilya Bryzgalov's contract... holy moly where'd you get that idea. They dumped the money on Bryzgalov right AFTER they trade Richards/Carter....

Yes, Murray failed. The only caveat I'll stick with in the Murray/Botts discussion is that Murray had the significantly more difficult job.

So it's more difficult to aquire troubled head-cases than it is to get rid of them?

[jame]

6 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

So it's more difficult to aquire troubled head-cases than it is to get rid of them?

Yes. It's more difficult to acquire talent than to get rid of it.  

Look at the roster Murray started with... the best players on it were probably Ennis, Risto, and.... Girgensons?

Botts took over a roster with Eichel, Reinhart, ROR, Kane, Bogosian.

 

Edited January 31, 2019 by jame

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

Just now, jame said:

Yes. It's more difficult to acquire talent than to get rid of it.  

 

You're about as twisted as your post.

[GASabresIUFAN]

The funny thing about that comment was that TM came in with a mountain of draft picks and virtually unlimited cap space. He had a clean slate to work with and blew it.   He proceeded to squander both the cap space and the draft picks plus the prospects in the pipeline and got us to 80 pts.  Yeah!  He left with a terrible pipeline because he drafted terribly,  no cap space, a pile of bad contracts and a regressing team.  Jbot had a much harder task.

Edited January 31, 2019 by GASabresIUFAN

[jame]

Just now, GASabresIUFAN said:

The funny think about that comment was that TM came in with a mountain of draft picks and virtually unlimited cap space. He had a clean slate to work with and blew it.   He proceeded to squander both the cap space and the draft picks plus the prospects in the pipeline and got us to 80 pts.  Yeah!  He left with a terrible pipeline because he drafted terribly,  no cap space, a pile of bad contracts and a regressing team.  Jbot had a much harder task.

Yes. Murray blew it.

Jbots has a significantly easier task.

 

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

2 minutes ago, jame said:

Yes. Murray blew it.

Jbots has a significantly easier task.

 

Not if there's even two people like you out the walking around.

[jame]

4 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

Not if there's even two people like you out the walking around.

No wonder you think Botts has a hard job...

Look, it's pretty simple.... Murray had to strip the org down to get to Eichel. Recovering from that was always going to be a difficult task. Murray failed in trying to plug the massive organizational holes he created to get to Eichel with bad trades, signings, drafts..... Murray, regardless of how difficult the job was.... failed. Completely and totally.

Meanwhile.... Botts was so bad at his job, that we landed Dahlin with a roster that had Eichel, ROR, Kane, Reinhart.... Botts job is easier because he gets a massive headstart with Eichel/Reinhart in place, and he gets the benefit of doing a terrible job and getting rewarded with Dahlin.

Edited January 31, 2019 by jame

[GASabresIUFAN]

20 minutes ago, jame said:

Yes. Murray blew it.

Jbots has a significantly easier task.

 

Based on what?  From the whole tank and rebuild we got

1) A 1st line center - Jack

2) a top 6 winger in Sam when we could have drafted Draisaitl (We took him 2nd overall and he might be the 8th best player from this draft)

3) Ristolainen - a top 4 D.

from 2013 to 2016 we made 36 draft picks including 13 in the 1st 2 rounds, plus TM dumped 2 1sts, 2 ,2nds, and 3 3rds and those 3 players are all we currently have to show for it. It’s possible 5 other players eventually make the team, but none are top 6 material and we needed 12-15 players from these drafts to build a solid foundation team.  We have 3.  

How does this level in incompetence make Jbot’s task easier? TM left us with no defense, no goaltending and no secondary scoring. Jbot had to clean out TM’s mistakes, get rid of as many bad contracts as possible, rebuild both the Amerks and Sabres all without a decent pipeline and draft picks to draw from.  

 

Edited January 31, 2019 by GASabresIUFAN

[jame]

5 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Based on what?  From the whole tank and rebuild we got

1) A 1st line center - Jack

2) a top 6 winger in Sam when we could have drafted Draisaitl (We took him 2nd overall and he might be the 8th best player from this draft)

3) Ristolainen - a top 4 D.

from 2013 to 2016 we made 36 draft picks including 13 in the 1st 2 rounds, plus TM dumped 2 1sts, 2 ,2nds, and 3 3rds and those 3 players are all we currently have to show for it. It’s possible 5 other players eventually make the team, but none are top 6 material and we needed 12-15 players from these drafts to build a solid foundation team.  We have 3.  

How does this level in incompetence make Jbot’s task easier? TM left us with no defense, no goaltending and no secondary scoring. Jbot had to clean out TM’s mistakes, get rid of as many bad contracts as possible, rebuild both the Amerks and Sabres all without a decent pipeline and draft picks to draw from.  

 

4.) a Selke caliber 1B center that Botts gave away

PS Reinhart is a better hockey player than Draisaitl.... but I know... points.

Top level talent is THE HARDEST part of the job.... Botts started with top level talent, Murray didn't.

For all of Murray's mistakes... hiring Dan Bylsma was the biggest.

 

Edited January 31, 2019 by jame

[nfreeman]

37 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

You're about as twisted as your post.

 

30 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

Not if there's even two people like you out the walking around.

You also need to take it down a notch, please. 

 

10 minutes ago, jame said:

4.) a Selke caliber 1B center that Botts gave away

PS Reinhart is a better hockey player than Draisaitl.... but I know... points.

Top level talent is THE HARDEST part of the job.... Botts started with top level talent, Murray didn't.

For all of Murray's mistakes... hiring Dan Bylsma was the biggest.

I think Draisaitl is better.

And the bolded is obnoxious and an example of why a bunch of people are taking shots at you.  Make your points without these little digs, please.

[...]

45 minutes ago, jame said:

Look, it's pretty simple.... Murray had to strip the org down to get to Eichel. Recovering from that was always going to be a difficult task. Murray failed in trying to plug the massive organizational holes he created to get to Eichel with bad trades, signings, drafts..... Murray, regardless of how difficult the job was.... failed. Completely and totally.

Meanwhile.... Botts was so bad at his job, that we landed Dahlin with a roster that had Eichel, ROR, Kane, Reinhart.... Botts job is easier because he gets a massive headstart with Eichel/Reinhart in place, and he gets the benefit of doing a terrible job and getting rewarded with Dahlin.

The take on Murray is dead on.

JBott having a massive head-start over Murray seems obvious, but, let's recall Murray assembled that roster - and that roster is what led to Dahlin.  I'm not sure how you pin the results of that roster on JBott.  What he did with that roster during the season and over the summer, fine, whatever happened then was - obviously - his doing.

The only question you don't seem to be asking is: with ROR, Eichel, Kane, Reinhart and I'll include McCabe and Risto in this list, why did they stink up the season?  I don't believe for one minute that it all comes down to goal-tending.  There should have been enough talent there to make two scoring lines, plus the fourth line is effectively the same as this year's.

And what could JBott have done - in season - to jump-start the "talent" and make them perform?

There are factors/parameters to what's going on that are missing.  That should be obvious as anyone assesses the reality that has unfolded before our eyes.  I don't know what those factors/parameters are, however it's clear that while it's fun to move pieces around on paper and in spreadsheets and call yourself a genius, saying they amount to obvious conclusions, the prior two GMs did exactly that and look where we are.  

We're discussing and judging these things while missing critical data and our conclusions are still speculative at best.  

 

 

  

Edited January 31, 2019 by ...
dlfighlfghl

[Carmel Corn]

I agree GMTM was the worst Sabres GM.  I don't necessarily think hiring Bylsma was the reason though....he could at least coach a powerplay!   Hindsight is 20-20, but I look to the Moulson and Okposo FA signings as his worst decisions that we are still paying for.   Second is the Lehner trade, significant overpayment of a round 1 pick there.  I would also add the McNabb for Fasching trade as another failure....even though McNabb moved on himself.  Next is the drafting of Alex Nylander, who thus far is a bust at #8 overall.  There is more, but the bad moves were made in such a SHORT period of time that made Botterill's job so much harder coming in behind him.

[woods-racer]

16 hours ago, dudacek said:

Or trades. He’s dumped three pieces of Murray’s core - Lehner, Kane, O’Reilly - and added two of his own, Dahlin and Skinner.

Time will tell if the returns (Tage, two firsts), or MIttelstadt, or his own first this year, or other picks, will translate into more core pieces.

The trades where failures by GMTM. I don't think using them helps your case, or using a high round draft pick in mentioning Dahlin.

I do understand that all teams to be successful must create their own luck in finding the Skinner-esque trades that can be had. The problem with them is and will always be, the cap and the huge amount of money they will be paying them. We can only get so many and if we sign Skinner are we there or very close to being able to stay under the cap to keep Dahlin and others like him in few years?

However, JBotts needs to find free-agents that fit this team to fill in lower roles. The 3-4 line guys. I'm not counting on him to be able  to find and afford to keep any more than 1 more  Skinner type deals. The Sabres  must rely on ECL's in 2021(?) and beyond.

That's why the I believe the reliance on him drafting successfully will either make or break any Cup runs we could hope for.

Edited January 31, 2019 by woods-racer