Explain "It's the owner" stance on T-Pegs

[BillsShredder83]

I see this a ton on anything Sabres whether it's here, sabres reddit, or just friends family. 

 

(Short background- feel free to skip)

Now admittedly I'm a much more casual Sabres fan, as opposed to die hard Bills fan.  Watched every game as a kid up through Hurricanes Eastern Finals, but then I moved. Games were much harder to follow out of town in '07 than today.. got my hands on Center Ice type package and picked them back up 3 seasons ago, where we were 2nd highest scoring team just needing a goalie 

This leaves me a bit out of touch with the position were in today. People were stoked when Pegula saved us, and hes a hockey first background with his Penn State work.

Usually when I think of a team that'll never be good bc of ownership I think of Jets and Woody or Cleveland Haslem and even Dallas and Jerruh.  Those teams will always be dumpster fires because of meddling and refusing to listen to the people theyve hired.  That doesn't seem like TPeg is doing here, and isn't what he's done with Bills.

 

I also don't see him as an absentee owner with the Bills. He's hands off after hiring the right people, in a good way, and I'm sure he offers his resources at request of front offices. 

do yall consider him an absentee owner for Sabres?

 

Seems he's made the wrong GM and coaching hires (i want to give Ruff time). 

 

What are the things you'd like to see him do as owner of this team? Do you think he's lazy about doing those things? too cheap? Too stubborn? Or just to incompetent? 

I don't disbelieve you all, I just have a hard time imagining him being a good football owner, who just has no chance at making hockey work??

 

His background says he knows hockey much more than football. Why can't his skills of handling of the Bills be transferable to the Sabres? 

 

-Frustrated Fan in NC

 

Edited Saturday at 09:50 PM by BillsShredder83

[mjd1001]

20 minutes ago, BillsShredder83 said:

I see this a ton on anything Sabres whether it's here, sabres reddit, or just friends family. 

 

(Short background- feel free to skip)

Now admittedly I'm a much more casual Sabres fan, as opposed to die hard Bills fan.  Watched every game as a kid up through Hurricanes Eastern Finals, but then I moved. Games were much harder to follow out of town in '07 than today.. got my hands on Center Ice type package and picked them back up 3 seasons ago, where we were 2nd highest scoring team just needing a goalie 

This leaves me a bit out of touch with the position were in today. People were stoked when Pegula saved us, and hes a hockey first background with his Penn State work.

Usually when I think of a team that'll never be good bc of ownership I think of Jets and Woody or Cleveland Haslem and even Dallas and Jerruh.  Those teams will always be dumpster fires because of meddling and refusing to listen to the people theyve hired.  That doesn't seem like TPeg is doing here, and isn't what he's done with Bills.

 

I also don't see him as an absentee owner with the Bills. He's hands off after hiring the right people, in a good way, and I'm sure he offers his resources at request of front offices. 

do yall consider him an absentee owner for Sabres?

 

Seems he's made the wrong GM and coaching hires (i want to give Ruff time). 

 

What are the things you'd like to see him do as owner of this team? Do you think he's lazy about doing those things? too cheap? Too stubborn? Or just to incompetent? 

I don't disbelieve you all, I just have a hard time imagining him being a good football owner, who just has no chance at making hockey work??

 

His background says he knows hockey much more than football. Why can't his skills of handling of the Bills be transferable to the Sabres? 

 

-Frustrated Fan in NC

 

Many of us don't think of him as an 'absentee' owner.  In many cases its the opposite....Instead of not listening to the people they hire, Some think Terry will just get rid of anyone below him who he disagrees with. That is the reason for, under Pegula, A couple of President of the team changes, 4 GM's, 8 different coaching staffs (couning Ruff twice), all in less than 15 years.

It may be he THINKS he knows more about hockey than football so he is too involved, to the detriment of the team, in a way he is not with the Bills.

Below are some points that some will agree with, others will disagree with, but they are just the tip of the iceburg to the argument about him. If you search enough on this forum, you will find some quotes and articles linked in threads to support some of them (and many others I am not mentioning).

-First point is that Adams constructed this roster, this rebuild, so its on him, but Pegula is the one who hired Adams. Pegula 'brought Adams' through the organization.  And Pegula fired Botts for not being a 'yes man', and replaced him with Adams, someone who many think was unqualifed for the position, but got it due to Pegula being 'comfortable' with him, not because he was the best, or even a good hire.

-He has personally picked players to sign in the past (Ville Leino, Christian Erhoff). There is speculation by some (not everyone) that he has an ovesized opinion still in roster direction, whether to sign someone to a big deal or not.

-Lots of smoke in the Eichel situation that he personally soured on Eichel, leading to the situation between him and the team getting worse.  Again, lots of discussion back and forth on this as well as some articles in those threads to support that view.  Reinhart trade? It was leading up to and during Covid, when there was a chance a longer term deal at a decent rate of pay might have kept him in Buffalo. That may not have happened because Pegula controls the purse strings and that is at the time he wanted to cut costs with the Sabres.

-When Covid hit, despite him being a billionaire, he demanded cuts be made to the Sabres staff. Some other teams made cuts also, but some not as deep, and Pegula seems to have been slow to put money back into the team.

-Some subtley here, but Pegula has a history of making hasty hires with the hockey team and then quickly reversing course. Many of those were due to disagreements, whether on money or the roster.  See the terms of Botteril being fired, the quotes directly from the Pegulas were "we felt we weren't being heard".

-He physically sits in at the draft war room, he frequnetly is in the building during the trade deadline. Some think he's just there to 'observe', others are sure he gives his input, sometime to the detriment of the process.

-There are several beat writers, several former players who are now in the media,that share those opinions.

There is more, a lot more. As is currently being discussed in another thread....see the older thread on here "the trial of Terry Pegula" its older, and there is a lot of arguments back and forth, it occasionally gets off topic.... but people have posted some pretty good points of view in it (at least of his earlier years with the team), and there are articles and links to some quotes that support this.

Also, it might take some time, but sift through some of the threads in the past 2 months. Many of us have posted info on this, some with quotes directly from him, and some with links to articles written about the topic.

 

Edited Saturday at 10:12 PM by mjd1001

[COSabreFan]

Everything has been tried and changed the past 14 years and nothing has worked.  The only constant has been Terry, no one else left to blame.

[EM88]

Something thing I would like to add.

  I do not thing that many people who are fans through this playoff drought and Pegula ownership period came into this with a grudge against him. It took a lot of failure and some specific incidents by him to get many of us to where we are.

He bought the team saying he was a fan of it.  He said he would spend whatever it took to win a Cup.  He implied he would spend up to the cap by saying there was no cap on coaches or scouts of other parts of the organization. I took that to mean the Sabres would have a team most of the time at the cap, one he would spend to build the best hockey department in the NHL. What was not to like?

To see what has happened to the team through the years and see all the changes in the organization, all the new faces, with only Pegula being the same at or near the top of it.  One can think over time that if no changes make things better, that the one thing that is the constant would indeed be the problem.

Take that fuzzy logic, and then add some of the specific stories mentioned above that imply, if not state outright, that he has been a problem, and you have where we are now with Terry Pegula.

[GoPuckYourself]

 

[LabattBlue]

It’s the owner! Why?  Meddlesome bumbling fool.  SELL THE TEAM!!

[GoPuckYourself]

At least we're not the New York Jets eh? 

[Big Guava]

It seems like Pegula doesn't care whether the GM is actually good at his job, it seems as if he wants a GM that does what he tells him to do...

Remember when Botterill was fired quickly after a Kim Pegula press conference saying he would be back with the team...then suddenly he is fired and we are told it was because the Pegula's "felt like they weren't being heard."

Botterill essentially refused to fire and gut the scouting staff so the Pegula's fired him and replaced him with KA who then quickly gutted the scouting staff and who Pegula feels very comfortable with. Why? Because he does what Pegula asks of him.

[Indabuff]

5 hours ago, GoPuckYourself said:

 

Kevyn, whatdya think about that?

 

 

Yeah,  that's what I thought.

[PerreaultForever]

6 hours ago, BillsShredder83 said:

I see this a ton on anything Sabres whether it's here, sabres reddit, or just friends family. 

 

(Short background- feel free to skip)

Now admittedly I'm a much more casual Sabres fan, as opposed to die hard Bills fan.  Watched every game as a kid up through Hurricanes Eastern Finals, but then I moved. Games were much harder to follow out of town in '07 than today.. got my hands on Center Ice type package and picked them back up 3 seasons ago, where we were 2nd highest scoring team just needing a goalie 

This leaves me a bit out of touch with the position were in today. People were stoked when Pegula saved us, and hes a hockey first background with his Penn State work.

Usually when I think of a team that'll never be good bc of ownership I think of Jets and Woody or Cleveland Haslem and even Dallas and Jerruh.  Those teams will always be dumpster fires because of meddling and refusing to listen to the people theyve hired.  That doesn't seem like TPeg is doing here, and isn't what he's done with Bills.

 

I also don't see him as an absentee owner with the Bills. He's hands off after hiring the right people, in a good way, and I'm sure he offers his resources at request of front offices. 

do yall consider him an absentee owner for Sabres?

 

Seems he's made the wrong GM and coaching hires (i want to give Ruff time). 

 

What are the things you'd like to see him do as owner of this team? Do you think he's lazy about doing those things? too cheap? Too stubborn? Or just to incompetent? 

I don't disbelieve you all, I just have a hard time imagining him being a good football owner, who just has no chance at making hockey work??

 

His background says he knows hockey much more than football. Why can't his skills of handling of the Bills be transferable to the Sabres? 

 

-Frustrated Fan in NC

 

is it just me or does this come off like an official questionnaire from the head office of Terry Pegula? 

I mean dude, if you are real, just read the board and all the threads. The answers are all there over and over and over again. 

[Random Karate Chopper]

Hello Everybody,

I'm going to divide the Sabres history into thirds in order to give an impartial comparison of different eras:

• From 1970/71-1987/88 the Sabres win percentage was 54% and they made the playoffs 13 times, going past the 1st round in 7 seasons
• From 1988/89-2005/06 the Sabres win percentage was 46% making the playoffs 11 times, advancing past the 1st round 6 times
• From 2006/07-present their win percentage is 44%, making the playoffs 3 times, advancing past the 1st round once

If we further divide the present era into sectors, before Pegula, from 2006/07 to 2010/11, the Sabres win percentage was 55%.  From Pegula's first complete season as the owner, 2011/12 to present, the Sabres win percentage is 36% and they've made the playoffs zero times.  The reason I am not including the 2010/11 season in Pegula's record is because he officially took ownership on February 18th, 2011, 68% of the season already completed, and the only subsequent moves that season were trading a second round pick for Brad Boyes, and waiving Craig Rivet.  It's worth noting that the Sabres did make the playoff that transitional season, but lost to the Flyers in the first round.

During that same span that Pegula has controlled the Sabres:

• The Boston Bruins have won 64%
• The Maple Leafs have won 52%
• The Senators have won 45%
• The Arizona Coyotes have won 40%
• The Buffalo Sabres have won 36%

12 hours ago, BillsShredder83 said:

I see this a ton on anything Sabres whether it's here, sabres reddit, or just friends family. 

Hopefully, the above math will help to put things into perspective.  I can't vouch for it's 100% accuracy.  It's pretty close to the truth, but feel free to make you own calculations.

 

ps.  I appreciate the welcome, and thank you administrators for hosting this board.  I'm grateful to contribute and I appreciate the services you provide.  It's really a special place you've got here.

[LGR4GM]

12 hours ago, GoPuckYourself said:

At least we're not the New York Jets eh? 

We're literally the NHL equivalent 

[Sidc3000]

14 hours ago, GoPuckYourself said:

 

That’s a good breakdown especially with the team being one of the youngest for a decade. Amazed on how many people, still to this day, defend the Sabres being young. 
 

I now see why Adams  is very reluctant to trade his young players. He is betting that they will all develop into the players they are predicted to be. He sees many of the other young players they have traded have hit their stride not long after the trades. He is willing to wait for years till they all finally develop. Every year he hopes,  this is the year they all start putting it together 🤞. He knows there is no help coming. He knows they have to develop into a legit NHL contender organically. Most other players in the league have the Sabres in their NTC. I also feel that the NTC is what is now holding the team down and there will be a push by owners to restrict it. You can have all the picks and young talent in the world, if you can’t use that as trade capital because players refuse the move, what’s the point?  
 

I’m trying to not make excuses for the inept leadership but I do see what their ineptitude has created. 

27 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

We're literally the NHL equivalent 

Except Pegula doesn’t have a teenager making player decisions based madden. 🤷‍♂️😂

Edited Sunday at 12:55 PM by Sidc3000

[LGR4GM]

At this point I'm ready to move off of Rosen, Östlund, and that other Russian is Rochester. They aren't worth anything but I'd add them as sweeteners where needed. 

Personally, I think the Sabres did a mediocre job in the 2022 draft. 

[Thorner]

17 hours ago, Big Guava said:

It seems like Pegula doesn't care whether the GM is actually good at his job, it seems as if he wants a GM that does what he tells him to do...

Remember when Botterill was fired quickly after a Kim Pegula press conference saying he would be back with the team...then suddenly he is fired and we are told it was because the Pegula's "felt like they weren't being heard."

Botterill essentially refused to fire and gut the scouting staff so the Pegula's fired him and replaced him with KA who then quickly gutted the scouting staff and who Pegula feels very comfortable with. Why? Because he does what Pegula asks of him.

Probably one of Adams’ biggest failings: so easily bending over backwards to the EEE strategy, at the very least. The enabling and encouragement of Terry’s worst qualities is exactly why we know he’s unfit to be a GM. Well, that and the complete lack of qualifications, or results achieved 

If we can’t get rid of problem numero uno in Terry, our only hope is he eventually realizes the only way to success is an experienced GM, neither selling a long form plan nor amenable to one, backed by a franchise actually prioritizing winning in the now. The issue being, I’m not even sure Terry is measuring success by those same parameters

Edited Sunday at 05:43 PM by Thorner

[PerreaultForever]

7 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

We're literally the NHL equivalent 

Kind of, but not really. 

Jets draft poorly and flounder (and are a joke) like the Sabres but they continually try to bring in quick fixes like signing Rodgers and others and players do go there so it's a bit of a different form of incompetency. 

 

The math above seems about right and it's not all that difficult to compare the reasons. All you have to do is look at the roster composition of this team, any current version, and compare it to the ingredients of the successful rosters from the past. The differences are glaringly obvious (even if you factor in the different styles of their eras). 

[DarthEbriate]

Say what you will about Pegula, but he hasn’t yet had a documented kill of a trade because he didn’t like the player’s EA NHL game rating.

The Sabres trades have been negated by the inbound players. 

[That Aud Smell]

15 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

Say what you will about Pegula, but he hasn’t yet had a documented kill of a trade because he didn’t like the player’s EA NHL game rating.

The Sabres trades have been negated by the inbound players. 

Right - the worst the Pegula kids have done is open a financial black hole of a lunch counter business in Harborcenter and ... of course, there were Matthew's j1zz hats.

[That Aud Smell]

He is unequivocally the worst owner the Sabres have ever had and it is not even close.

I think about the fact that Golisano - if memory serves - put some shackles on Darcy based on the team's limited ability to generate revenue (back when they were pretty good!). But Golisano imposed those limits and then (1) let hockey people do the hockey things, full stop; (2) lent his considerable business chops to high-level issues and big picture decision making.

Terry gets it exactly wrong in both of those scenarios: He continues to assert himself in hockey decisions and has little to add on the business side. (Again, folks, he's not some scrappy, intense, process-oriented entrepreneur like Golisano was/is -- he's a high stakes oil man who could have easily gone bust instead of boom.)

[inkman]

20 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

At this point I'm ready to move off of Rosen, Östlund, and that other Russian is Rochester. They aren't worth anything but I'd add them as sweeteners where needed. 

Personally, I think the Sabres did a mediocre job in the 2022 draft. 

Kisakov? 

[LTS]

On 12/21/2024 at 4:50 PM, BillsShredder83 said:

I see this a ton on anything Sabres whether it's here, sabres reddit, or just friends family. 

 

(Short background- feel free to skip)

Now admittedly I'm a much more casual Sabres fan, as opposed to die hard Bills fan.  Watched every game as a kid up through Hurricanes Eastern Finals, but then I moved. Games were much harder to follow out of town in '07 than today.. got my hands on Center Ice type package and picked them back up 3 seasons ago, where we were 2nd highest scoring team just needing a goalie 

This leaves me a bit out of touch with the position were in today. People were stoked when Pegula saved us, and hes a hockey first background with his Penn State work.

Usually when I think of a team that'll never be good bc of ownership I think of Jets and Woody or Cleveland Haslem and even Dallas and Jerruh.  Those teams will always be dumpster fires because of meddling and refusing to listen to the people theyve hired.  That doesn't seem like TPeg is doing here, and isn't what he's done with Bills.

 

I also don't see him as an absentee owner with the Bills. He's hands off after hiring the right people, in a good way, and I'm sure he offers his resources at request of front offices. 

do yall consider him an absentee owner for Sabres?

 

Seems he's made the wrong GM and coaching hires (i want to give Ruff time). 

 

What are the things you'd like to see him do as owner of this team? Do you think he's lazy about doing those things? too cheap? Too stubborn? Or just to incompetent? 

I don't disbelieve you all, I just have a hard time imagining him being a good football owner, who just has no chance at making hockey work??

 

His background says he knows hockey much more than football. Why can't his skills of handling of the Bills be transferable to the Sabres? 

 

-Frustrated Fan in NC

 

First and foremost, I would not give him much credit for the Bills success and that while the Bills have been a playoff team they still have not won a Super Bowl. So if our definition of success for the Bills' management is just making the playoffs, then okay. Of course it helps that two of the teams in their division are absolute garbage.

I will pass judgment on Terry Pegula as an NFL owner once the Bills face adversity and have to build a team to be successful more than once. Right now it's easy enough to say they "got lucky". Let's say the BIlls had years and years of failure after Pegula took over and that they finally got to where they are today. Then I would give them more credit.

As for the NHL part of his ownership. It's been an abject failure that's never been equaled in the history of the NHL. As such I don't know who else you look to for the ultimate responsibility on that other than the one constant, the owner. It's not just that the teams are bad year after year, it's also how they've managed to irritate players and build a culture where NHL players do not want to play for this franchise. It's how they've managed to create such a horrible game day experience. It's really every aspect of how this team has been run.

There are maybe 2-3 things this organization has done right since Pegula took over and sadly 2 of those moments pertain to Rick Jeanneret and how they honored his career and impact on the game of hockey and certainly Buffalo Sabres fans.  That's just not a good record at creating a successful NHL franchise by any means. It's failure after failure after failure with no apparent end in sight.

 

[Night Train]

There are GM/President alternatives from other organizations. Don't know the actual reasoning for sitting on his hands. Budgeting ?  Stubborn ?   Depression over his wife ?  Post holidays, a change will probably happen. One can dream he could stumble upon another Beane type to run the Sabres side. 

[mjd1001]

14 minutes ago, Night Train said:

There are GM/President alternatives from other organizations. Don't know the actual reasoning for sitting on his hands. Budgeting ?  Stubborn ?   Depression over his wife ?  Post holidays, a change will probably happen. One can dream he could stumble upon another Beane type to run the Sabres side. 

I think that when a president of hockey operations was brought up in the past, Pegula came out and said it wasn't needed.

There were comments that not only were on this board, but came form some in the media at the time, that the reason is Pegula did not want another layer between him and the on-ice product.  I do not remember if it was Hamilton on WGR or one of the national guys out of Toronto, but I do rememeber hearing that discussion at the time.

Edited Monday at 02:51 PM by mjd1001

[DarthEbriate]

47 minutes ago, inkman said:

Kisakov? 

Likely Neuchev. Kisakov has no trade value as a sweetener at this point.

Edited Monday at 03:13 PM by DarthEbriate

[Pimlach]

16 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

Say what you will about Pegula, but he hasn’t yet had a documented kill of a trade because he didn’t like the player’s EA NHL game rating.

The Sabres trades have been negated by the inbound players. 

And the inbound players negate the trades because of the poor organization that Terry Pegula leads and runs.