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

[Taro T]

18 hours ago, Brawndo said:

Adams mentioned he has a great relationship with Ron Francis who moved Eric Tulsky into, a Full Time Role with Carolina and has created Seattle’s Analytics Department. If he can replicate this in Buffalo

 

The work requested from Nightengale under Botterill was to give data to support the decisions that Hockey Ops made, not to give data to help Hockey Ops make decisions

One of the rumors surrounding their purchase of the Bills was that the NFL is expecting them to build a new stadium or have a massive overhaul of New Era Field.  Their existing lease agreement is up in 2023 and any chance of public money towards a project disappeared thanks to Covid. 

The bolded, sadly, seems extremely plausible.  And it makes some head scratching moves over the past 2 seasons make more sense.  (Not in that they should've happened but rather in understanding htf did that just happen.)

[Taro T]

6 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Remember Adams revealed the team’s new motto during his radio interview; “doing more with less.”

That just doesn’t bode well for the future.  We have tried that before.  Remember video scouting and a shared farm team.  This destroyed our prospect pipeline and our development system and created the foundation of the mess we are in now.  Just to emphasize this, TP just reduced the scouting dept from 22 to 7.  

Now add an inexperienced GM, a paired down hockey department, incompetent ownership now more interested in saving money then winning, and the general acknowledgment around the league of owner incompetence and what do you get.  A recipe of even more failure to come.  

The funny thing is I’m ok with Jbot being shown the door.  I’m even ok with trying to save some money, but firing Taylor instead of working with him and hiring an inexperienced yes man as GM were steps to far. 

Our only hope is somehow we get lucky and Adams is smart enough in year one to play it cool using a scalpel to the roster rather then a hatchet or the Pegula’s sell the franchise.  Odds of either of these things happening? Zero!

Really doubt they plan on staying at 7 scouts.  Sometime shortly after the draft my guess is we see ~7-10 people brought in between the scouting department & what has been afaik a 1 man analytics department under the Botterill regime. 

Won't be as heavily staffed as in the past (which me no likely - hey, it's Pegula's money, why should we care ;)) but hopefully will be staffed more effectively.  Results can't be much more disappointing than what we've seen to date.  (Yes, the video scouting era proved it CAN be more disappointing, but not by much.)

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

Another underplayed story.

I think Hutton is a great example of Botterill’s reluctance to vary from his plan when it hits a pothole.

I had resigned myself to Jason sticking with his goalies, but Ralph and Kevyn aren’t married to Carter. I wonder if they make a move,

Hutton & no attempt to use the Berglund free cap space 1 year ago to take a chance on say a Johansson to fill the 2C role (which would've cost a smidge of draft capital but also would've shown he had to go to Plan C to effectively fill that hole this past season) were the 2 biggest examples of that ottomh.

Not clearing the log jam of RHD after guys were healthy & Jokiharju had earned his spot on the big squad by capitalizing on staying up due to injuries would be the 3rd.

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, Crusader1969 said:

They have to. I don't care that his vision has been corrected. They NEED to bring in someone else to pair with Ullmark.

Hutton would be great in Rochester as a mentor to UPL and/or Johansson.

Absolutely.  A lot of us have been preaching that they have to bring in a FA this off-season since long before we found out what the excuse for Hutton failing off this year was.  (Wonder if he had the issue the 1st year here too?  He fell off the map after a good start then as well.)

[Thorner]

17 hours ago, IKnowPhysics said:

List of Sabres employees terminated yesterday:

https://mobile.twitter.com/frank_seravalli/status/1273383490365636610?s=21

22 in total.

Scouting staff reduced from 21 to 7.

Scout's guide to the zombie apocalypse. 

[Thorner]

7 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Remember Adams revealed the team’s new motto during his radio interview; “doing more with less.”

I heard it was, "Effective, efficient, and economic". 

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29323153/dismantling-buffalo-sabres

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, LTS said:

It's an interesting change, but as more information comes out it begins to make sense.  The Pegulas have tried the "old hockey" way since they bought the team. They've had "NHL" people in their ear and in their pockets and nothing has come of it.  Certainly this can be because of them and not the "old hockey" people.  But they are the owners, they can choose to sell the team, or to cap the Pegula well and cut off the "old hockey guard".

With regards to scouting one has to wonder why you need so many these days.  If you are going to put stock in analytics then you can easily pull the analytics on players from all over the world.  You'll identify the key pieces you are looking for and then you send the scouts to check them out and use the eye test to confirm the data. Better than waiting for one of 30 scouts to "see" something and then find the data to prove what you saw.  

I'm ambivalent.  The Pegulas have not done anything right yet with the Sabres.  This is just a change in my book.  Could it be worse?  I suppose, but not much.  If it's better, then great.

I certainly expect the "old guard" to be quite critical of the move however.

Thing is, that's where combining video scouting with a top notch old school scouting department should've allowed for superlative results.  Having guys beating the bushes & talking to coaches & junior team leaders (from every country) should turn up the old time gems & video combined with analytics should turn up ones that the guys in the field beating the bushes miss.

But it never happened (except w/ Olofsson to date, maybe one of Botterill's reaches pan out, but they haven't yet).  So, yeah, try something new.  

But also, & this probably actually belongs in the "Meet Kevyn Adams" thread, if Adam's was involved in the review of the prior hockey department as it seems, then Pi's concern that he won't be ruthless enough would seem to be misplaced.

1 minute ago, Thorny said:

I heard it was, "Effective, efficient, and economic". 

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29323153/dismantling-buffalo-sabres

It's a regular E3.

[Thorner]

7 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Im going to help save you some time

 

Terry and Kim to JB right before they canned him. "Fire everyone?"

 

[Curt]

2 hours ago, kas23 said:

It’s easy to know who was fired, as there’s a published list. But, who is left in scouting? It’s possible they could’ve already established their draft board for the coming draft, but the question is does it still exist? Or, was it “lost” once everyone was fired?

 

This reminds me of the 2017 Bills draft. At least they waited for the day after the draft to fire everyone. Pegs must’ve really wanted these guys out of the building. 

Adams and whoever is left + hired in scouting will prepare for the draft.  All of the information gathered by scouts throughout the season is still there.  Scouts file their reports.  They don’t take them with them when fired.  The team owns them.

[Thorner]

6 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

I guess this is the best catch-all thread for this speculation: one philosophical difference that stems from running Rochester as a place to develop more prospects simultaneously will be fewer European and collegiate draft picks. Yes, they're good for letting develop on their own timeline and then bringing them to ROC, but you'll need more CHL-ers if you want to have ROC stocked with more prospects. They can still have the veterans, and still grab the collegiate undrafted guys at the end of the season (or in spring, because seasons change). But -- you won't have their rights for up to 5 years while they develop.

This. Botteriill's drafting strategy was becoming numbing, it's one of the things I'm most happy about with his dismissal. 

[Thorner]

5 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

I was gonna go with...

The End of Suffering thought seems to have survived the night. I'm feeling OK about things. This is based on RaKru largely grabbing the wheel, while handing a toy steering wheel to Terry to go zzzoooom zzzzoooom with, and Adams being competent — and the general vibe around the team is that they have to fire up the fans next season and make the playoffs. Trade picks for a 2C? Absolutely.

 

Does this quote bother you, from the ESPN article I linked:

"Are the Sabres the team of Ralph Krueger?

They should be. He's the one guy with the hockey cachet to tell the other links in the chain they're wrong.

We've lobbied in the past for Krueger to take on the dual coach/GM role with the Sabres, in the spirit of a Mike Keenan or a Bryan Murray. But when I asked him if Adams getting the general manager job would lead to Krueger being more involved in hockey operations, the erudite coach replied, "I signed on here to be the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres.""

[Taro T]

3 minutes ago, Curt said:

Adams and whoever is left + hired in scouting will prepare for the draft.  All of the information gathered by scouts throughout the season is still there.  Scouts file their reports.  They don’t take them with them when fired.  The team owns them.

Would be surprised if they build the scouting / analytics staffs much, if at all, prior to the draft.  Those guys get cut loose right after the draft typically not before it.  (Otherwise, everybody's be poaching each others scouts to get the scoop on their rivals prior to the draft.

[Thorner]

3 hours ago, Drag0nDan said:

Last piece is the important piece... it'll fade, but right now its unlikely that players/coaches/scouts would want to come here.  

The light workload piece also triggers me... were these guys coasting?  

Adams is definitely going to have to mold the roster through trades this offseason rather than UFA

[Curt]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Would be surprised if they build the scouting / analytics staffs much, if at all, prior to the draft.  Those guys get cut loose right after the draft typically not before it.  (Otherwise, everybody's be poaching each others scouts to get the scoop on their rivals prior to the draft.

True for current NHL people.  I wonder if they would bring anyone into the scouting or analytics department who isn’t currently employed by an NHL team though?

[Broken Ankles]

14 minutes ago, Taro T said:

The bolded, sadly, seems extremely plausible.  And it makes some head scratching moves over the past 2 seasons make more sense.  (Not in that they should've happened but rather in understanding htf did that just happen.)

agree - extremely disappointing if that was the case.  

  So let's assume Adams decides to effectively use the analytics department,  independent of what he or his scouts, or coaching staff suggest.   In addition to this, if Adams is open to drafting OHL/QMJHL, and is not beholden to players like Hutton (b/c he signed him) or Mitts (b/c he drafted him),  leverages the uncertainty of the 20-21 season to  kick the can down the road on some RFA's,  and most importantly capitalize via trade with teams that need to move salary to remain under the cap, to help secure a veteran top 6 forward (s), why is our situation not better than it was a few weeks ago?  Granted the last one is not easy.   We all hear about rookie/inexperienced GM's crushed in trade negotiations and this could be concerning.  Hopefully the cap situation will factor in to level out that inexperience. 

[Thorner]

1 hour ago, dudacek said:

I can't remember if it was Botterill or someone else, but a member of the brass said a month or more ago the bulk of the draft work was done and they were working to be ready for an early June selection.

The scouting is done. The bulk of the debate is done. At least a working board is ready and it was probably "finalized" as far as Botterill goes. The draft board is proprietary information, owned by the Sabres. Every report and list filed remains property of the Sabres. There hasn't been any new chances to adding new information by scouting and testing players because there hasn't been any hockey or testing allowed.

They could draft tomorrow if they needed to. The only question is whether Adams wants to run their existing list through a different set of eyes, or a different lens. I suspect he does, and he has plenty of time to do that.

I can't see how he wouldn't. The Sabres were the only team in the league to draft as little from the CHL as they did, can't see Adams being similarly unusual. 

[Taro T]

3 minutes ago, Curt said:

True for current NHL people.  I wonder if they would bring anyone into the scouting or analytics department who isn’t currently employed by an NHL team though?

If they do bring somebody in that's currently not working, would expect it to happen pretty rapidly as it would seem either Krueger or Adam's would have to already have a pretty good trust of that individual & a good working relationship with.

Otherwise, most anybody they'd want would be expected to be currently employed, right?

[GASabresIUFAN]

One other note:  Adams in his interview said he received at least 100 resumes in his inbox following the announcement.  Just imagine the quality of those candidates given they are so desperate for a job in the NHL that they'll work for an unqualified GM and for this completely dysfunctional franchise.

Edited June 18, 2020 by GASabresIUFAN

[Curt]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

If they do bring somebody in that's currently not working, would expect it to happen pretty rapidly as it would seem either Krueger or Adam's would have to already have a pretty good trust of that individual & a good working relationship with.

Otherwise, most anybody they'd want would be expected to be currently employed, right?

I don’t know.  I think there are a lot of good analytics people out there who don’t work for teams.

[Taro T]

12 minutes ago, Curt said:

I don’t know.  I think there are a lot of good analytics people out there who don’t work for teams.

Well, if it's an analytics person, would expect Nightingale to know them pretty well.

At least we finally have something to talk about. 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Taro T

[Curt]

1 minute ago, Taro T said:

Well, if it's an analytics person, would expect Nightingale to know them pretty well.

At least we finally have so nothing to talk about. 

We’ve had nothing to talk about for so long that your phone autocorrected “something” to “so nothing”.

I don’t know if Nightingale has connections or not.  I don’t think I’ve ever really heard his name mentioned by anyone outside the organization, he has only ever worked for Buffalo, and I’m unsure about the actual quality of his work.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Curt

[Brawndo]

So they fired the Hockey Ops IT Guy by mistake and brought him back today per Friedman 

[Taro T]

2 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

So they fired the Hockey Ops IT Guy by mistake and brought him back today per Friedman 

:huh:

How is that even possible?

[darksabre]

7 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

So they fired the Hockey Ops IT Guy by mistake and brought him back today per Friedman 

[Brawndo]