Jbot needs to go

[Randall Flagg]

9 hours ago, pi2000 said:

I'll chalk it up to fuzzy math.

Winning faceoffs is better than losing faceoffs.   

Blocking a shot is better than not blocking a shot.

Taking the puck away from the opposition is better than letting them posses the puck.

Playing against a team that hits is more taxing than playing against a team that doesn't hit.

Buffalo would be a better team if they had players who could fill those roles.

 

What I think is going on here is something like this:

When fans see a team engaging in hits, the team they are watching is generally playing intense and engaged hockey in other aspects as well, which they view is a clear positive. I completely agree with this, especially when some teams really know how to use physical hockey as a defensive tool. The kind of hits fans look for are a marker for a team that could do something in this league.

This can get conflated, though, with comparing hit totals as a stat. But hits are counted differently in different buildings, and many "hits" recorded are the dumbest little things you've ever seen, and so those stats not only don't really tell us the best or most consistent teams at physical engagement, they are downright distributed as if it was a random number generator handing them out, and so they're useless as a number to tell you anything.

The same thing with blocking shots - you can have a team fully committed to laying it all out on the line and putting themselves in front of shots. That team could also be elite at hockey, and allow 1,000 fewer shot attempts than a different, less committed team, therefore skewing the "shot block" stat against them undeservedly, having 1000 fewer attempts to rack up these numbers.

Pi, what I'm saying is that you pulling these stats out doesn't mean a lot. Show me video of our guys shying away from these things, and show me video of the guys you want and the teams you like using these things to their advantage, and your case is a lot more compelling. Otherwise, I'm simply not convinced that player x's shot blocking stat tells me anything, or is a problem.

2 hours ago, sabremike said:

You would be the guy to ask about this: wasn't there an NHL team several years back that did a study trying to find out the effect of winning faceoffs and basically it showed that it makes virtually no difference in game outcome whatsoever?

I don't have the details but I do remember this being a thing.

[bunomatic]

As much as I’ve come around to JBottom being incompetent and Ralph being more concerned with this avatar he’s created And this aura surrounding himself thats larger than life but what has he done to change anything here. The culture ? Not for a minute. Cultures the same. Players are the same. Same results. I’m ready for both of these charlatans to go. Bring in a competent hockey guy to run things. They’ll hire another newby. WTF Karen? You’re destroying this once proud franchise and poisoning everyones view of said franchise. ENOUGH of your bonehead moves. Do something right for once.

[Randall Flagg]

Bob McKenzie just mentioned that we need to be patient with Jason, and that the Pegulas can't keep cycling through people. I don't know if it's just his affinity for WJC's and Botts being an old guard WJC guy, but Bob has not once made sense regarding anything Jason has done.

Before/during the ROR trade McKenzie literally called him a 3C on a good team. He tried to carry Jason's water and tell us how great the return was. So did guys like Pierre, who supposedly was in defense mode as well last night.

Bob is a great gossip who is good at knowing people. The dude's hockey takes are nothing to take stock in, I trust the takes of 50 Sabrespace posters over his. He can go pound sand. The GM he likes has no idea how to build a hockey team.
 

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, LTS said:

1. You might not be getting paid, true.  But you have money.  It's not like these guys are desperate.  Hell, they could be hired as "special advisors" somewhere.

2. You ever try to lead an incompetent leader?  Yeah.. that doesn't work.

3. There's a short list, and if my name is someone like Lou Lamoriello or Peter Laviolette, then yes, I am getting a call.  We're talking about the established hockey people here, those with good reputations.  Not the one shot assistants who failed.  Those are the guys who took their shots, failed, perhaps because of incompetent owners, and now have to hope like hell they get another shot.  Yet those guys might be gun shy to go try and lead again with another incompetent owner, because if that owner leads them to failure again, now they are a two time failure.

4. Botterill says no to Pegula he gets the LaFontaine treatment.  Then he has to choose whether he calls out the owner or stays silent.  You call out the owner and every other owner is going to look at that and say, "This guy is only out for himself. I'm not hiring him."

5. I think a guy who is well established is not going to walk into a situation with an incompetent owner and spend the energy to try and overcome that incompetence. It's like saying the old guy wants to train the young snot nosed brat.  That narrative works in the movies, not in real life.

6. See my point on #4.  You get your one shot you have to make it work.  You tell owners to stick it and they fire you.  You get to play the game of calling out the owner or being the company guy and falling on your sword.  You may want to be that guy who says "Dude, this owner was a clueless *****."  You'll get to say it... then you'll not work again because the owners... they don't want someone who tells them they are idiots.  It doesn't end well for those guys... in any sport... hell... in any job in the world.  Tell your boss he's an idiot and see what happens next.

 

 

I do not believe for a second that if Jason Botterill was fired there is not a competent replacement for him to found. 

[WildCard]

20 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Bob McKenzie just mentioned that we need to be patient with Jason, and that the Pegulas can't keep cycling through people. I don't know if it's just his affinity for WJC's and Botts being an old guard WJC guy, but Bob has not once made sense regarding anything Jason has done.

Before/during the ROR trade McKenzie literally called him a 3C on a good team. He tried to carry Jason's water and tell us how great the return was. So did guys like Pierre, who supposedly was in defense mode as well last night.

Bob is a great gossip who is good at knowing people. The dude's hockey takes are nothing to take stock in, I trust the takes of 50 Sabrespace posters over his. He can go pound sand. The GM he likes has no idea how to build a hockey team.

Makes sense. Remember when we were in our last GM search and the talks all were that the NHL was involved and wanted to make sure we got a legit guy? Botterill is 100% viewed around the league as a smart, capable GM. I want to give him one more year myself

[Randall Flagg]

Just now, WildCard said:

Makes sense. Remember when we were in our last GM search and the talks all were that the NHL was involved and wanted to make sure we got a legit guy? Botterill is 100% viewed around the league as a smart, capable GM. I want to give him one more year myself

Bookmarked

[WildCard]

2 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Bookmarked

[Torpedo Forecheck]

1 hour ago, Radar said:

I'm afraid you're maybe hitting the nail on the head. I'm more and more looking at ownership as a problem here. One could argue that the Bills seem to be heading in the right direction under the same ownership but that could be just luck more than design. I hope that our ownership has not become a reason for good, qualified managers to why away from here because that follows all the way down the line and would basically kill this franchise or at best give us what we're seeing  now. Hope I'm wrong. Scary that I'm moving towards PA's position more and more with the end of another bad season approaching.

Whether it is luck as you say or what not, Pegulas aren't the ones making the personnel decisions. From everything I've heard about them, you can criticize naivete, but Jerry Jones they are not. Not hard to fathom a situation where JBot is canned now, and a better decision maker comes in and improves things. Whether that is luck or not is really irrelevent. The NHL also provides assistance to teams who need help finding decision makers. The problem is too many bad decisions by the GM. Their hire didn't work out, move on

Edited February 7, 2020 by Torpedo Forecheck

[Randall Flagg]

2 minutes ago, WildCard said:

I didn't actually bookmark it. Just gonna say told you so when Jason trades Reinhart for a 2nd, a mediocre prospect, and a depth player that's some amalgamation of the worst bits of Vesey, Sheary, Frolik, Vlad, Berglund, Josefson etc. along with signing Wayne Simmonds and Troy Brouwer to complete the forward core heheh

[WildCard]

2 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I didn't actually bookmark it. Just gonna say told you so when Jason trades Reinhart for a 2nd, a mediocre prospect, and a depth player that's some amalgamation of the worst bits of Vesey, Sheary, Frolik, Vlad, Berglund, Josefson etc. along with signing Wayne Simmonds and Troy Brouwer to complete the forward core heheh

Jesus, that's terrifying.

[pi2000]

2 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I didn't actually bookmark it. Just gonna say told you so when Jason trades Reinhart for a 2nd, a mediocre prospect, and a depth player that's some amalgamation of the worst bits of Vesey, Sheary, Frolik, Vlad, Berglund, Josefson etc. along with signing Wayne Simmonds and Troy Brouwer to complete the forward core heheh

Would you be Ok with a mid/low 1st, a prospect and a bottom 6 roster player if it also included Okposo going the other way?

Asking for a friend.

[WildCard]

3 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

Would you be Ok with a mid/low 1st, a prospect and a bottom 6 roster player if it also included Okposo going the other way?

Asking for a friend.

Not even close. We don't have enough top 6 forwards as it is, I'm not trading exactly what we need for garbage we don't.

[TrueBlueGED]

17 hours ago, Curt said:

Sooo, anyway, with regards to Botterill......

Im on record as saying I think he sold Pegula on a slow rebuild and that his job was safe until after the 2020-21 season.  However, I also think that Pegula is sensitive to the public perception surrounding the team.  I feel like if anything gets Botterill fired, it will be the increased negative press on a national level, and Pegulas reaction to it, even moreso than the team’s poor performance.

Well, I think there's a difference between a slow rebuild and one with literally no tangible progress. I also think if Botterill sold them on a 4-5 year process that he'd probably have gotten at least a 5 year contract. Nobody thinks it's a good idea to have him a lame duck in the critical year of his plan, right? 

2 hours ago, LTS said:

If anyone wants me to say it..

Botterill is not the problem, not yet.  The problem is recovering from the mistakes that were made prior.  This off-season is the critical off-season for him.  This is when so many salaries come off the books. The roster can be remade as he would like.  If he fails at that, then he should be gone.  If he even looks like he is failing at that then he should be gone. But at the moment, I can't fire the guy.  Pegulas are to blame for this mess. 

Instability in the front office in the first few years of ownership and a clear lack of understanding of the game of hockey kept the Sabres from getting any big names (although Botterill was considered an up and comer).  Firing him now would only enhance that image.  I can only imagine who would want to come lead the Sabres at that point.

 

 

 

Three contracts on the team were inherited from Murray. That's it. This is Botterill's team. Looking at the forwards Botterill has brought in over his three years here, one of them (Skinner) has had an unquestionably positive impact. And even that was only true last year, not this season. Why should he have the opportunity to spend cap space when he has demonstrated an inability to use it well over three seasons? 

[Randall Flagg]

4 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

Would you be Ok with a mid/low 1st, a prospect and a bottom 6 roster player if it also included Okposo going the other way?

Asking for a friend.

No. That is likely Reinhart's return without including Okposo, so it's not realistic, and it doesn't do me the favor of at the very least maintaining the number of good NHLers we have in the organization, which is what all of our problems ultimately boil down to in the first place - not having enough of those.

There are players you can say "oh, these guys suck and are detrimental to their teams." There are players that you can say "these guys can exist on good teams as long as there aren't too many of them." There are guys that can be successful players on good teams, being a reason their teams are good. These include both elite, franchise players as well as staple second pairing defensemen or good second line forwards. The Sabres will not be good until they get above some threshold of the latter category. Sam is unequivocally in this category whether his style butters your bread or not. We cannot afford to lose any more of this category of player. We need to add about 4 of them. We simply do not have the net assets in this organization to get more than a couple, and losing Reinhart for pieces in lesser categories just puts us further behind the 8-ball.

Jason's biggest problem is that he views guys who are in the middle category as guys who are in the last category described.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Randall Flagg

[TrueBlueGED]

22 minutes ago, WildCard said:

Makes sense. Remember when we were in our last GM search and the talks all were that the NHL was involved and wanted to make sure we got a legit guy? Botterill is 100% viewed around the league as a smart, capable GM. I want to give him one more year myself

So was Peter Chiarelli when Edmonton hired him. 

[WildCard]

Just now, TrueBlueGED said:

So was Peter Chiarelli when Edmonton hired him. 

I don't want to enter Browns territory of constant turnover.

[TrueBlueGED]

Just now, WildCard said:

I don't want to enter Browns territory of constant turnover.

Is 3-year turnover for the GM really worse than letting a GM who has demonstrated zero team-building acumen toss around $30 million in cap space which can have ramifications for years? 

[WildCard]

Just now, TrueBlueGED said:

Is 3-year turnover for the GM really worse than letting a GM who has demonstrated zero team-building acumen toss around $30 million in cap space which can have ramifications for years? 

It comes down to how long you think it takes to be good at that job. How long did it take Stevey Y to show progress in Tampa? Probably not 3 years to be honest. 

I mean you're probably right; it's the same argument I had for firing Byslma. But ***** is it just annoying to go through it all again. Whomever we replace him with is going to need at least 2 years to get his plan underway, and even then there's no guarantee that will work. Just keep spinning the wheel, waiting 2-3 years, and trying again. 

[TrueBlueGED]

12 minutes ago, WildCard said:

It comes down to how long you think it takes to be good at that job. How long did it take Stevey Y to show progress in Tampa? Probably not 3 years to be honest. 

I mean you're probably right; it's the same argument I had for firing Byslma. But ***** is it just annoying to go through it all again. Whomever we replace him with is going to need at least 2 years to get his plan underway, and even then there's no guarantee that will work. Just keep spinning the wheel, waiting 2-3 years, and trying again. 

I don't need the team to instantly be a finished product any more than I need a drafted prospect to instantly be a complete player. But I need to see signs that point to a general level of competence and progression. Botterill hasn't shown any of those signs. 

I also think it's a red herring to suggest a new GM needs 2 years to get their program running. Not every GM is going to come in and pretend there's no evidence of what the roster is. Find a guy who says "The last 3 years have value for assessing the players even thought it was with a different coach/GM" and you've cleared the biggest hurdle to a quicker turnaround. 

Edited February 7, 2020 by TrueBlueGED

[Randall Flagg]

8 minutes ago, WildCard said:

It comes down to how long you think it takes to be good at that job. How long did it take Stevey Y to show progress in Tampa? Probably not 3 years to be honest. 

I mean you're probably right; it's the same argument I had for firing Byslma. But ***** is it just annoying to go through it all again. Whomever we replace him with is going to need at least 2 years to get his plan underway, and even then there's no guarantee that will work. Just keep spinning the wheel, waiting 2-3 years, and trying again. 

An offseason orchestrated by a GM that's in the top half of the league in "ability to be a competent GM" would make next season the most fun season we've had since 2009-2010 and would put us in a wild card position. Wild, more than 50% of the teams in this league make the playoffs, and we have Skinner, Eichel, Reinhart, Olofsson, Dahlin, and several 2nd pairing defensemen, and Linus Ullmark is a reasonable goalie. We don''t have to keep adding forward trash to this roster for the 4th straight offseason pretending we're light years away and just need to wait for Kyle's contract to end or something

[sweetlou]

JBott has at least one more year.  This off season is huge for him with only a few players signed for next year.  What salaries do the RFA's get and what is he able to bring in via trades or UFA's will determine how long he stays on after that.

The Skinner trade was a steal, but signing him to the contract was a little too steep.

Joker for Nylander looks good in his favor so far.

Montour for pick and Guhle is good.

Kane and ROR trades are his only blemishes and I feel his hands were tied in both those situations because of how the players perceived the organization and wanting out.

[freester]

1 minute ago, sweetlou said:

JBott has at least one more year.  This off season is huge for him with only a few players signed for next year.  What salaries do the RFA's get and what is he able to bring in via trades or UFA's will determine how long he stays on after that.

The Skinner trade was a steal, but signing him to the contract was a little too steep.

Joker for Nylander looks good in his favor so far.

Montour for pick and Guhle is good.

Kane and ROR trades are his only blemishes and I feel his hands were tied in both those situations because of how the players perceived the organization and wanting out.

Montour trade was not good at all.  He is mediocre and no better than Colin Miller or Guhle.  Boteril will also overpay Montour this offseason.

[pi2000]

1 minute ago, freester said:

Montour trade was not good at all.  He is mediocre and no better than Colin Miller or Guhle.  Boteril will also overpay Montour this offseason.

bookmarked

[freester]

25 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

So was Peter Chiarelli when Edmonton hired him. 

Chiarelli is infinitely better than Botteril.  At least Adam Larson can play.  The pieces we got for ROR were garbage and salary cap dumps

[Curt]

1 hour ago, TrueBlueGED said:

Well, I think there's a difference between a slow rebuild and one with literally no tangible progress. I also think if Botterill sold them on a 4-5 year process that he'd probably have gotten at least a 5 year contract. Nobody thinks it's a good idea to have him a lame duck in the critical year of his plan, right? 

There definitely is a difference and my remarks were not a defense of the job Botterill has done.  The results just haven’t been there and his moves have been a mixed bag.

Thats an interesting point regarding the contract length, but who knows.  I couldn’t say how the Pegulas view having a lame duck in there.

When does Botterill’s contract end?  Was it a 4 year deal?