Djp
Registered User
There are reasons but they’re much more keystone cops than Machiavellian.
Murray as GM -> Pegula impulsively hires LaFontaine in Nov 2013 after a dinner/meeting with him one night. Which leads to Regier/ROslton getting fired and Nolan brought in. Then a GM search starts. He (Patty) does the GM search and it leads to Murray. Not even two months later they (Patty/Murray) are fighting with each other over the direction of the team. Murray wants to tank hard. Patty doesn’t and wants to re-sign Miller. Pegula has to pick a side and Murray wins out. Then Patty quits the team.
Both murray and Botts interviewed here. Murray hire was not as rescheduled. Both were on the short list of new gm in the league across the board.
Murray wanted to tank for McDavid, lafontajne did not. Pegula wanted to tank too.
TM firing had to do with leaks.
Botts as GM -> Pegula goes to the NHL offices for guidance on who are the up and coming GM candidates. That leads to Botts getting hired. He (Botts) wants to build up the front office staff and he does. We end up with one of the bigger front offices in the NHL. He gets fired and that front office gets gutted. Pegula also complained about Botts keeping him out of the loop on a lot of things. Thats about him being a dorky fanboy who likes to be around when things are discussed. Not because he tells the GM what to do. Which should be obvious since it would be impossible to leave him out of the loop for 3 years if he controlled things that much. That applies to Bills and Sabres.
I dont recall the details of the firing other than it seemed out of the blue.
Krueger/Adams -> Krueger manages to convince Pegula that he’s found his McDermott for the Sabres. So he (Pegula) sets up a front office thats structured the same as the Bills. That means Krueger has a lot of power over the roster and answers directly to Pegula (not Adams). He hires Adams as GM simply because he knows and trusts him. Pegula felt burned by the guidance from Patty and the league front offices on his previous GM hires. The irony of feeling that way about Patty after he impulsively hired him the first place is beyond comical. This is also the gutted front office that was “economic and efficient”
Adams came on katr inheriting Kruger so he asked what roster needed thrn did those moves.
Adams as GM -> Adams gets full control of the front office after the previous experiment blows up in Pegula’s face. The front office structure goes back to the norm with the GM above the coach. Adams starts bringing back front office personnel and we don’t have the gutted front office any more. Adams hired someone experienced (Karmanos) as the associate GM. Then let him do the grunt work of reviewing the entire organization from top to bottom. We have one of the smallest front offices but its very slowly growing with adds each offseason.
after firing Kruger and having to trade off the Eichel, reinhart, and Risto this meant a rebuild was needed. Thus us similar to the 2013-2015 draft years then trying to compete started. For sabres it was 22-25 draft years
I’ve always found the narrative that Pegula is some master manipulator to be bizarre. He’s a dorky super fan who is easily talked into things. Even if they’re not the norm and don’t look like a great idea. As Bills fans, we’re just lucky one of those things worked out. Teams normally don’t give a ton of power to a first time NFL head coach and have him answer directly to the owner (not the GM). Which effectively boxed out the existing GM. Then is allowed to essentially hire his own GM to replace him. That sounds like another thing that should have blown up in Pegula’s face.
A big difference between nfl and nhl us you can rebuild faster. Nhl you wait 2-5× yrs for drafted players to develop. In nfl you get a fee to contribute in yr 2 and others by yr 2. You can easily get out of contracts and sign UFA and nake big changes over 3 drafts/off sessons and 2 full seasons
,In the nhl, talent is talent. TThee isn't so much a system thing as you see in the nfl where some fit some teams systems but not others.
I don’t understand why it can’t be that he got a bit lucky with the bills, and has been unlucky with the Sabres. Murray and Botts were highly praised hires, and both didn’t work out. Housley was supposed to be a big up and comer, he was horrific.
This idea that he got lucky with the bills but has been a mingling cheap incompetent with the Sabres is a bit much for me as well
Remove Covid issue from this because thr NHL could survive an FCC operate judt on tv money. Not so in hockey where ticket sales matter. Thats where the cheapness comes in and breaking even.
In the NHL you can easily get out of bad contracts or ones that dont fit.