Matt Ellis to be Named Director of Player Development

[Stoner]

37 minutes ago, dudacek said:

What do Todd Marchant, Mark Bell, Jamie Langenbrunner, Brian McGrattan, David Oliver, Chris Clark, Shawn Horcoff, Rick Carriere, Mike Ryan and a whole bunch of other average to mediocre former hockey players have in common?

They are NHL directors/managers of player development and have cronies in NHL upper management.

Does this indicate it's a useless position for most NHL teams? Populated by people getting favors? If so imagine the advantage if the Sabres didn't follow suit?

[Stoner]

1 hour ago, Reino23 said:

?

You've been a troll ever since i joined this web site so i don't expect anything less, but obviously with the team being trash for 9 years and hiring wrong people and fans having their conspiracy theories so anything they do will be criticized heavily. They did that to themselves. Even when the rumors floated around about John Chyuka joining the Sabres, there was a handful of people pointing out of all his bad moves with the Coyotes and arguing that he would be a popular hire but not a good hire. Point is, the only way all of this negativity will go away is if the Sabres break their drought and make the playoffs. Until then, every hire, every trade, every draft pick will be looked at under a microscope.

I don't know, go ask him.

When your response starts with a personal attack, it says a lot. You can shoot the messenger all you want. After you get the nastiness out of the way, you know the score just like I do. You just dislike me for knowing it nine years before you did I guess.

Except.... it'll take more than making the playoffs to stop the negativity.

[Weave]

1 hour ago, Reino23 said:

?

You've been a troll ever since i joined this web site so i don't expect anything less, but obviously with the team being trash for 9 years and hiring wrong people and fans having their conspiracy theories so anything they do will be criticized heavily. They did that to themselves. Even when the rumors floated around about John Chyuka joining the Sabres, there was a handful of people pointing out of all his bad moves with the Coyotes and arguing that he would be a popular hire but not a good hire. Point is, the only way all of this negativity will go away is if the Sabres break their drought and make the playoffs. Until then, every hire, every trade, every draft pick will be looked at under a microscope.

I don't know, go ask him.

He’s a skeptic, not a troll. If the Pegulas ever start getting decisions right I think you’ll see the difference.   PA had been more right than wrong through the last decade.  
 

And the diversity of opinion is why I keep coming back.

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

Prediction and hot take - how well Matt Ellis does at developing players will depend almost exclusively on the quality of players our GM brings in. 

Yup.  The guy in charge of player development is at the mercy of the guys that get drafted.

[Curt]

3 hours ago, Thorny said:

Prediction and hot take - how well Matt Ellis does at developing players will depend almost exclusively on the quality of players our GM brings in. 

Agree, but also, Matt Ellis was hired at a department Director level.  Does everyone actually think that he is going to be spending any significant amount of time working with players one on one?  That’s for the development coaches.  Not singling you out, but I just keep seeing stuff about Ellis working with players on skill development.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Curt

[Thorner]

6 minutes ago, Curt said:

Agree, but also, Matt Ellis was hired at a department Director level.  Does everyone actually think that he is going to be spending any significant amount of time working players one on one?  That’s for the development coaches.  Not singling you out, but I just keep seeing stuff about Ellis working with players on skill development.

Oh ya. I was just wrong on the details, probably cause I didn't do a good enough job reading up on it (my bad) cause I don't really care who the Director of Player Personel is relative to so much else Sabres wise, admittedly. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Thorny

[dudacek]

4 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Does this indicate it's a useless position for most NHL teams? Populated by people getting favors? If so imagine the advantage if the Sabres didn't follow suit?

Do we know what the job description and the qualifications for player development director are, or whether Matt Ellis has them?

Did we know what Steve Greeley’s were? Or what extra responsibilities he had that made him an AGM?

Do we remember who Murray’s Director of Player Development was? Darcy’s?

Did we even care?

To me, that list indicates most of the guys in this position are about as high-profile as Ellis and that we have no idea how good a hire this is.

The Pegulas track record means everyone is skeptical. Whoever they hired in this position wasnt going to change that.

Edited August 17, 2020 by dudacek

[kas23]

1 hour ago, Curt said:

Agree, but also, Matt Ellis was hired at a department Director level.  Does everyone actually think that he is going to be spending any significant amount of time working with players one on one?  That’s for the development coaches.  Not singling you out, but I just keep seeing stuff about Ellis working with players on skill development.

Who are these development coaches? Didn’t we fire everyone?

[kas23]

6 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Do we remember who Murray’s Director of Player Development was? Darcy’s?

Did we even care?

We probably would if we were a perennial winner, as they likely would’ve been promoted by other teams. 

[Thorner]

5 minutes ago, kas23 said:

Who are these development coaches? Didn’t we fire everyone?

[dudacek]

On 8/14/2020 at 9:04 PM, irregularly irregular said:

Is it just my imagination or is there a sense of coup d'etat having taken place here? Good soldiers risking their positions to save the monarchy?

General Ralph and some of the Colonels and Majors got together to perform an intervention? After removal of the dark overlord, some of the mid-level officers moved up in pay grade? 

I'm not complaining, just wondering.

 

This post deserves more attention.

A lot was written months ago about the lack of trust and division throughout the organization and that something needed to be done to repair that.

The king and queen sent their man on a deep dive through the organization. He handpicked the survivors. 

The inclination is to think the king and queen are evil and the bad guys won. Doesn’t mean the purge wasn’t necessary. 

We’ll see what comes next

[Weave]

32 minutes ago, dudacek said:

The Pegulas track record means everyone is skeptical. Whoever they hired in this position wasnt going to change that.

I don't think this is correct.  The sentiment being displayed in here is that the guy being promoted is another OJT guy.  Think of a team with a good player development record.  Had the Pegulas hired someone involved in the player development program of one of the teams with a good reputation for developing their players there would have been significant  praise being handed down.  And rightfully so as it would have indicated that the team went looking for someone with experience in a successful developmental organization.  Instead, we get Matt Ellis.  Maybe he's an excellent choice for the role, but at face value he looks more like someone they are comfortable with as opposed to someone with a proven successful background.

Given where this team has been, and where it is currently, I know what I wanted to see here. 

[dudacek]

6 minutes ago, Weave said:

I don't think this is correct.  The sentiment being displayed in here is that the guy being promoted is another OJT guy.  Think of a team with a good player development record.  Had the Pegulas hired someone involved in the player development program of one of the teams with a good reputation for developing their players there would have been significant  praise being handed down.  And rightfully so as it would have indicated that the team went looking for someone with experience in a successful developmental organization.  Instead, we get Matt Ellis.  Maybe he's an excellent choice for the role, but at face value he looks more like someone they are comfortable with as opposed to someone with a proven successful background.

Given where this team has been, and where it is currently, I know what I wanted to see here. 

And I don’t think we know enough to know what that looks like and if the Sabres were any good we wouldn’t care enough to scrutinize the hire. We never have in the past. 

I also think what you describe is essentially the player development version of hiring Botterill as GM.

Edited August 17, 2020 by dudacek

[Thorner]

28 minutes ago, dudacek said:

This post deserves more attention.

A lot was written months ago about the lack of trust and division throughout the organization and that something needed to be done to repair that.

The king and queen sent their man on a deep dive through the organization. He handpicked the survivors. 

The inclination is to think the king and queen are evil and the bad guys won. Doesn’t mean the purge wasn’t necessary. 

We’ll see what comes next

Lol Grima Wormtongue

Edited August 17, 2020 by Thorny

[Weave]

3 minutes ago, dudacek said:

And I don’t think we know enough to know what that looks like and if the Sabres were any good we wouldn’t care enough to scrutinize the hire. We never have in the past. 

I also think what you describe is essentially the player development version of hiring Botterill as GM.

Agree with all of this, including the Botterill reference.  His hiring was pretty well praised at the time.  He pushed the right buttons.  I'd love to know where it went wrong.  Unlike most, I think alot of it may not have been of his doing.  But the GM takes the bullet.

[Curt]

1 hour ago, kas23 said:

Who are these development coaches? Didn’t we fire everyone?

Still two development coaches employed.  Two/three were fired.  Maybe the new Director of Player Development will hire a couple more.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Curt

[nfreeman]

6 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

You can't be cereal. Is there any plausible scenario where Matt Ellis is your director of player development if the Sabres had a real GM and the owners hadn't laid down the template for what kind of people they want working for them?

I'll lay 50-50 odds that the Pegs recommended Ellis to Adams, with the other 50 filed under, "I know what I have to do here." And in both cases, it's clearly involvement.

The first bolded is qualitatively different from the 2nd.  Of course KA is going to know that the Pegulas prefer Sean McD to Rex Ryan.  KA himself is much more McD/Beane than Rex/Tim Murray, and KA probably prefers McD/Beane/KA types to Rex/TM types.

I think it's highly unlikely that TP mentioned Ellis to KA or otherwise gave KA any kind of specific direction as to who should be hired for this role.

If I had to guess, I'd say the Pegulas had zero involvement other than the quick approval I mentioned earlier.

 

6 hours ago, dudacek said:

What do Todd Marchant, Mark Bell, Jamie Langenbrunner, Brian McGrattan, David Oliver, Chris Clark, Shawn Horcoff, Rick Carriere, Mike Ryan and a whole bunch of other average to mediocre former hockey players have in common?

They are NHL directors/managers of player development and have cronies in NHL upper management.

 

5 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Does this indicate it's a useless position for most NHL teams? Populated by people getting favors? If so imagine the advantage if the Sabres didn't follow suit?

This seems to me to be exactly the kind of position that an ex-player who is working on an NHL front office career, who has already had a couple of positions lower down the ladder and who is well liked by his current organization/network often gets. 

@PASabreFan is making it sound like he was just another lowlife hanging around the Bing and Tony picked him for the next job because he was there and he needed a warm body.

[Stoner]

Look, listen, stop, drop and roll... You're preaching drafting/player development as your model for success, because you don't think free agents will come to Buffalo and your GMs can't make franchise-altering trades (not positive ones, anyway). You can't then turn around and look no farther than Matt Ellis, who's been "developing" youngsters with slim chances of making it to the NHL, to head your development team. Well, you can do that, but you can't be taken seriously. If they're following the NHL tradition of development hiring that nfreeman and dudacek are talking about, shame on them.

[Curt]

5 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Look, listen, stop, drop and roll... You're preaching drafting/player development as your model for success, because you don't think free agents will come to Buffalo and your GMs can't make franchise-altering trades (not positive ones, anyway). You can't then turn around and look no farther than Matt Ellis, who's been "developing" youngsters with slim chances of making it to the NHL, to head your development team. Well, you can do that, but you can't be taken seriously. If they're following the NHL tradition of development hiring that nfreeman and dudacek are talking about, shame on them.

Until they start winning, it’s shame on them no matter what.

[Stoner]

11 hours ago, nfreeman said:

The first bolded is qualitatively different from the 2nd.  Of course KA is going to know that the Pegulas prefer Sean McD to Rex Ryan.  KA himself is much more McD/Beane than Rex/Tim Murray, and KA probably prefers McD/Beane/KA types to Rex/TM types.

I think it's highly unlikely that TP mentioned Ellis to KA or otherwise gave KA any kind of specific direction as to who should be hired for this role.

If I had to guess, I'd say the Pegulas had zero involvement other than the quick approval I mentioned earlier.

You own a truckstop and make it know you like bosomy waitresses, Because Bosomy and because you know the truckers who eat there will like it. You hire someone to manage the place, and she's bosomy. She implicitly knows to hire bosomy waitresses. Would you say the owner has zero involvement in what the staffing ultimately looks like?

You can draw a straight line from the Pegulas to Matt Ellis as director of player development. Of course they can say they didn't hire him. So, I guess, they can't be touched when they have to fire everyone again in three years. Terry's hands were all over the Botterill Error, from Housley to ROR to watching game film and sitting next to assistant coaches up top. In the end, he can easily sell the public on Jason being the one who has to go.

[Stoner]

3 minutes ago, Curt said:

Until they start winning, it’s shame on them no matter what.

I'm still waiting for the moment when the Sabres start winning and I have to find a way to continue to criticize the Pegulas. Looking forward to it.

[inkman]

11 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

You own a truckstop and make it know you like bosomy waitresses, Because Bosomy and because you know the truckers who eat there will like it. You hire someone to manage the place, and she's bosomy. She implicitly knows to hire bosomy waitresses. Would you say the owner has zero involvement in what the staffing ultimately looks like?

Where is this truck stop again? 

[nfreeman]

12 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

You own a truckstop and make it know you like bosomy waitresses, Because Bosomy and because you know the truckers who eat there will like it. You hire someone to manage the place, and she's bosomy. She implicitly knows to hire bosomy waitresses. Would you say the owner has zero involvement in what the staffing ultimately looks like?

 

Just now, inkman said:

Where is this truck stop again? 

Yes -- it's hard to evaluate and respond to @PASabreFan's posts without at least photos.

[JohnC]

15 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

You own a truckstop and make it know you like bosomy waitresses, Because Bosomy and because you know the truckers who eat there will like it. You hire someone to manage the place, and she's bosomy. She implicitly knows to hire bosomy waitresses. Would you say the owner has zero involvement in what the staffing ultimately looks like?

You can draw a straight line from the Pegulas to Matt Ellis as director of player development. Of course they can say they didn't hire him. So, I guess, they can't be touched when they have to fire everyone again in three years. Terry's hands were all over the Botterill Error, from Housley to ROR to watching game film and sitting next to assistant coaches up top. In the end, he can easily sell the public on Jason being the one who has to go.

The one transaction that hasn't been adequately explained to my satisfaction is who was pushing the ROR deal? The most intriguing aspect of that damaging deal was who was behind it from the organization side? Was it the GM or the owner/s? For me the issue isn't why was he dealt? It's understandable that a disgruntled player gets moved. At the time it was well known that a bonus payment was coming due and probably influencing the trade timetable. Few people can argue that ROR was one of the best two way players in the league. In hindsight, and even foresight at the time, it would have been better to pay the bonus and then scan the market for a better deal. It can't be questioned that even to this day the void he left at the 2C position still needs to be addressed. A bad decision that has had lingering repercussions. 

[steveoath]

55 minutes ago, JohnC said:

The one transaction that hasn't been adequately explained to my satisfaction is who was pushing the ROR deal? The most intriguing aspect of that damaging deal was who was behind it from the organization side? Was it the GM or the owner/s? 

I get the feeling that getting an answer to this would involve a setup like Tom Cruise V Jack Nicholson in "few good men".

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

The one transaction that hasn't been adequately explained to my satisfaction is who was pushing the ROR deal? The most intriguing aspect of that damaging deal was who was behind it from the organization side? Was it the GM or the owner/s? For me the issue isn't why was he dealt? It's understandable that a disgruntled player gets moved. At the time it was well known that a bonus payment was coming due and probably influencing the trade timetable. Few people can argue that ROR was one of the best two way players in the league. In hindsight, and even foresight at the time, it would have been better to pay the bonus and then scan the market for a better deal. It can't be questioned that even to this day the void he left at the 2C position still needs to be addressed. A bad decision that has had lingering repercussions. 

I think Botterill wanted to change the culture and I think Pegula's disliked ROR's comments and drunk driving accident. It combined into a perfect storm and the final nail in the coffin was Pegula's saying they wanted him gone b4 paying his bonus.