Hey Terry, Do Us A Favor and SELL

[Ace]

Naw, leave my investment account alone. What we need is someone to tell Terry he’s a f***ing idiot and he’s killed a once proud franchise with his shit ownership and management.

Fine. I’ll do it.

 

[Fjordy]

Sell

 

[Jim Bob]

Why has Terry Pegula’s success with Bills not translated to Sabres? Mailbag

With the Sabres in last place in the conference, the macro concerns are weighing heavily on this franchise.

www.nytimes.com

Explain how the same owner can have such a model NFL franchise and a trash heap for an NHL franchise, please? — Michael M.

The two leagues are different in so many ways. Building a winner in the NFL is not necessarily easier, but it is simpler. If you find your quarterback, that’s going to solve a lot of your problems. Free agency can help you flip a team quickly, and drafted players can make an instant impact. The timeline to rebuild an NHL team is longer. But this question is a fair question that comes up quite a bit, and I think there are legitimate explanations beyond the idea that Pegula got lucky in hiring Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane.

There’s a certain amount of luck involved in pro sports, of course. If Pegula picked Vance Joseph instead of McDermott back then, would this have worked out? If Brandon Beane hadn’t managed to trade up for Josh Allen or if he had chosen a different quarterback, how would that change the story of his and McDermott’s tenure?

But I believe Pegula, along with McDermott and Beane, deserves credit for what’s happened with the Bills. McDermott was a strong coaching candidate during that cycle, but it’s not as if he was considered the top prize. Pegula saw something in him and, more importantly, was willing to take his hand off the wheel and let McDermott change the culture of the building. That meant McDermott got control of the roster before the Bills eventually fired Doug Whaley, who had a close personal relationship with Pegula. Pegula then hired Beane, someone with whom McDermott had a prior relationship. Both McDermott and Beane had worked their way through the ranks and earned those jobs. They had conviction in their plan, and the early results helped Pegula trust them to do what needed to be done to fix the Bills. Good process doesn’t guarantee the success the Bills have had, but that was a solid process from top to bottom by Pegula.

What I can’t figure out is why Pegula hasn’t yet learned from that experience in how he’s operating the Sabres. Pegula’s track record hiring coaches and general managers is terrible outside of McDermott and Beane. But I can’t sit here and say it was all luck when the process to arrive at McDermott and Beane was so different from the process to arrive at general manager Kevyn Adams. The Sabres did not run a general manager search before hiring Adams. That wouldn’t even be allowed under the NFL’s Rooney Rule. Pegula hired Adams because, in his words, he was “loyal and communicative.”

“I’m going to label communication as one of the biggest issues with the Sabres,” Pegula said the day he fired Jason Botterill and hired Adams “We felt like we weren’t being heard.”

Adams had been serving as the senior vice president of business administration for less than a year when he was hired. He started working for the Pegulas in 2011 first as a Sabres assistant coach, then as director of the Pegulas’ Academy of Hockey and GM of Harborcenter, the Pegulas’ hotel, retail and practice rink complex during that time. That’s a much different resume than McDermott and Beane had prior to Pegula hiring them. It’s also fair to wonder how exhaustive the Sabres’ most recent coaching search was. It shouldn’t be shocking when you get bad results out of a bad process. But if the goal is for Pegula to be closer to the decision making with the hockey team, the current structure certainly makes that easier.

All of that combined with the fact that the Sabres haven’t spent to the cap since the pandemic are the main reasons things are different with the two teams. Owning an NFL franchise is easier from a business standpoint. The league’s revenue-sharing setup with massive television deals makes NFL teams profit machines. On the field, once you have competent leadership and a franchise quarterback, you’re in good shape to be competitive. When you end up with one of the best quarterbacks of a generation like the Bills have in Allen, you have a chance to win a Super Bowl every year. Owning an NHL team is harder by comparison, but it’s not nearly as difficult as Pegula has made it look.

 

[Chainshot]

Today remains a wonderful day to sell the team.

 

[slip]

Why are the Bills awesome and Sabres trash? Hmmm:

"But I believe Pegula, along with McDermott and Beane, deserves credit for what’s happened with the Bills. McDermott was a strong coaching candidate during that cycle, but it’s not as if he was considered the top prize. Pegula saw something in him and, more importantly, was willing to take his hand off the wheel and let McDermott change the culture of the building."

On the Sabres front:

"The Sabres did not run a general manager search before hiring Adams. That wouldn’t even be allowed under the NFL’s Rooney Rule. Pegula hired Adams because, in his words, he was “loyal and communicative.”

“I’m going to label communication as one of the biggest issues with the Sabres,” Pegula said the day he fired Jason Botterill and hired Adams “We felt like we weren’t being heard.”

It's not rocket science folks. But further on:

"On the field, once you have competent leadership and a franchise quarterback, you’re in good shape to be competitive. When you end up with one of the best quarterbacks of a generation like the Bills have in Allen, you have a chance to win a Super Bowl every year. Owning an NHL team is harder by comparison, but it’s not nearly as difficult as Pegula has made it look."

Huh? A sufficient condition to be competitive in the NFL is a franchise quarterback and competent leadership? Good luck stumbling into both at the same time in the NFL. But the NHL? Where half the teams make the playoffs every year? Hell, every off season you could wake up after a drunker stupor, pull yourself off the floor, and pluck 23 random players and one coach out of a hat,, and you're 100% likely to make the playoffs at least once over a 14 year time frame.

No, it takes legendary incompetence and meddling by ownership to suck this much for so long.

Sell the f***ing team. Now.

 

[OkimLom]

“We felt like we weren’t being heard.”

Sounds like a One-Way street of communication to me when the owner is saying this.

Someone open to better communication would have the ability to understand when they are wrong in a field they don’t have experience in. Those that don’t care about being wrong, and only care about getting their way put a heavy emphasis on being heard over everything else.

 

[sabremike]

The league needs to institute a rule where if you miss the playoffs 10 years in a row you get cut off of any revenue sharing.

 

[slip]

The league needs to institute a rule where if you miss the playoffs 10 years in a row you get cut off of any revenue sharing.

In Pegula’s case, we should cut off a little more than his revenue. At his age, he won’t miss it.

 

[Ace]

“We felt like we weren’t being heard.”

Sounds like a One-Way street of communication to me when the owner is saying this.

Someone open to better communication would have the ability to understand when they are wrong in a field they don’t have experience in. Those that don’t care about being wrong, and only care about getting their way put a heavy emphasis on being heard over everything else.

We don’t have to wonder what this quote meant btw.

He told Botterill he was staying. Kim came out and told the fans they didn’t have as much information as the brilliant Pegulas did when they were angry at the decision. Then he was fired because Terry told him to gut the hockey department to save him money and he refused. So the “loyal” Adams volunteered and got a job he is totally unqualified for as the reward for firing many, many people.

Thats what that quote meant.

 

[joshjull]

Why has Terry Pegula’s success with Bills not translated to Sabres? Mailbag

With the Sabres in last place in the conference, the macro concerns are weighing heavily on this franchise.

www.nytimes.com

I like Fairburn but comparing the Adams hiring to that of McD/Beane to explain why one team is successful and the other is ridiculous. In general the article is off the mark for a variety of reasons.

1) Pegula has owned the team for 14 seasons. It’ll be 14 1/2 at the end of this one. There were 9 1/2 seasons prior to the pandemic where two GM’s were hired (Murray/Botts) with very normal GM searches like the McDermott search. So it’s a little weird for Fairburn to act baffled that Pegula hasn’t learned something from the Bills he’s already done 2x with the Sabres.

The funny thing is, Pegula did learn something from the Bills and applied it to the Sabres. That idiotic “flat management” structure he brought in during the 2020 offseason. He gave Krueger the power McDermott had and he answered directly to him. Adams was brought in to be his right hand man. Obviously the Bills success is due to the people in the structure not the structure itself.

2) The reason people feel Pegula got lucky with the Bills is because the 1st person he hired and gave full control to immediately broke the playoff drought. Then went on to set up an organization thats had sustained success for several years.

Compare that with 6 different people(Regier/LaFontaine/Murray/Botts/Krueger/Adams) having control over the Sabres roster since Pegula bought them. They got their jobs in different ways, had it for different lengths of time and didn’t all have the same job title. But the two things they did have in common were (1) sucking at putting a good team together and (2) who gave them that power. Thus the 14yrs and counting of futility.

3) Fairburn lumping together the hirings of McDermott and Beane as if they’re the same. They weren’t. Beane was always going to get the job due to his connections with McD. They did the GM “search” to comply with the Rooney rule, not to find a GM. I doubt they would have done a search had the Rooney rule not existed. Beane would just got the job. His hiring is more in line with Adams’ not McD’s.

4) The “hands off the wheel” comment was just odd. The Bills front office structure has been the same since Pegula took over. Both the coach and GM answer directly to him. The very nature of that setup will have Pegula involved, not “hands off”. The only change after McD was hired is the power over the roster switched from GM to coach.

5) The communication comments. Many want to use these one off comments as proof Pegula constantly meddles with the Sabres. I get the impulse. But if we’re being honest, a true controlling owner would have a laundry list of things directly linked to him. Not the occasional comment here or there. Nor would they ever tolerate a GM supposedly ignoring them for 3 years. Could you imagine Jerry Jones doing that?

I definitely believe communications matters to Pegula. But Murray and Botts were both fired for the same reason. They wouldn’t do the one big ask Pegula had for them. Murray wouldn’t fire Bylsma and Botts wouldn’t gut the front office. If they had done those things they would have kept the GM job.

Which is scary to me for reasons that have nothing to do with communication. It seems like their actual job performance (bad) didn’t play a role in their firing. Which makes me wonder if anything can get Adams fired. I can’t imagine what a “one big ask” for Adams would look like that he would refuse to do.

 

[NikF]

A bit of an outsider's perspective. I'm not sure you guys want to hear it but if you actually look at your roster from strictly an assets perspective, there is not much reason to be doom and gloom about it. You've got some nice pieces, Dahlin, Thompson, Cozens, Power, Byram...obviously not to go over every name but there's quite some things to work with there. So I don't think your issue is a talent issue (I also love Elias Pettersson but I don't think he would addres the real problem with your organization, though might still be a great add - I've scouted both Dahlin and EP back when they were still prospects in Europe and loved both).

The real issue with Buffalo seems to me to be a "culture" issue. You need to supplement your young pieces with veterans who come from model franchises where winning was a reality and an expectation and where they played at least a significant role (ie real minutes). And not only that but you need them to play real roles on your team ie 18 min and more per night. A #6 defenseman and a 4th liner isn't going to cut it. You need 4-7 players that can set the tone for consistency in the way the game is played and an expectation for the conduct of players.

If you go back almost 20 years, I've seen Dean Lombardi transform a joke of a franchise in LA Kings into a model franchise by supplementing a young Kopitar and Doughty (and you do have Dahlin and Thompson at least so that's already something) with those kind of veterans. You overpay them (whether through FA or trade) and you play them. People at that time laughed at Visonvsky (a top PMD at the time) for Stoll and Greene, they laughed at Patrick O'Sullivan (a young productive player at the time) and a 2nd for an injury prone Justin Williams. Then you had FA signings of Handzus, Scuderi, Willie Mitchell...that really changed that franchise's course from a joke country club atmospere to a serious franchise. It was supplemented by Terry Murray who drilled into the team the defensively responsible and checking style of play the Kings wanted to play (and later Sutter made it more aggressive on the forecheck en route to Stanley Cup).

The point I'm making is you need to supplement your young talent with those kind of players, because no teenager or early 20s guy knows what it takes to win in the NHL (there are some very few exceptions of type A personalities from the get-go but it's highly unusual). You need someone who sets that tone. And I went over the Sabres rosters since Dahlin entered the league and it honestly doesn't seem like there is or was real support there for him or the young players on the team. I think the first thing to do would be to identify and target the players who have played real roles at model franchises and try to get the ones that fit your team and that can be had (in relation to McLeod probably going to get some flack for this too but I don't consider the Edmonton Oilers a model franchise either despite them being to the finals, it's McDavid and Draisaitl carrying a less than ideal organization).

Overpay those players if you have to and they need some term so they aren't gone in one or two seasons. If you have to sacrifice a prospect or a high pick, sometimes you have to do it. Not all of the prospects hit anyways and waiting for them to all "figure it out" while throwing them to the wolves at the NHL level and expecting a miracle to happen...well that doesn't happen, regardless of the amount of talent on ice. Because a 20 year old kid looking to another kid, who looks to another 25 year old with a total of zero playoff games between them...they're not starting off on a strong foot against established NHL teams. The veterans who have seen those things at model franchises can provide you with the stability, expectations and stadard of conduct - so that YOUR young talent can learn what it takes to make the post-season in this league.

But there's obviously more to it than just that. You need everyone in the organization pulling into the same direction. Those expectations have to be set in the AHLas well with the style of play and how competitive the team is (in terms of effort not necessarily in standings in AHL), you need your pro and amateur scouts to look for that, you need coaching at all levels to drill that home. It really starts working when you get these effects by synergy. At the time I know Dean Lombardi even went as far as dictating how the gym room should look, and I think even dictated to the marketing team not to make any posters/commercials featuring the Kings stars if there weren't at least two other Kings in the picture. Obviously I'm not saying you have to go to that length but that's the idea.

I think from an asset perspective you are not even close to a bad position, but there seems to be a real cultural issue and the real worry is the longer you expose your talent to a losing environment the harder it is to salvage them from becoming part of the problem because of the mental toll and the acceptance of losing. That's when you need to make some real tough decisions to cut ties with players who have lost for too long at your franchise, if it gets to that point.

So just from an outsider perspective that's my two cents. Your owner and your GM need to understand what it takes at a cultural level to grow a winning organization and then carry that plan out. Elias Pettersson would be an awesome add but by itself it won't address the root issue and even if you get him, you might wonder a season later why a team with EP and Dahlin didn't make the playoffs - if those other issues don't get addressed.

As an added note here is a list of acquired (non-homegrown) players on the Kings playoff roster the first year they made it out of first round (they won that year but this theme of adding winners to supplement Kopitar and Doughty goes back years) since Kopitar entered the league:

- Mike Richards (Stanley Cup Finalist with Philadelphia)
- Justin Williams (Stanley Cup champion with Carolina)
- Jeff Carter (Stanley Cup finalist with Philadelphia)
- Dustin Penner (Stanley Cup champion with Anaheim)
- Matt Greene (Stanley Cup finalist with Edmonton)
- Jarrett Stoll (Stanley Cup finalist with Edmonton)
- Willie Mitchell
- Colin Fraser (Stanley Cup champion with Chicago)
- Brad Richardson
- Rob Scuderi (Stanley Cup champion with Pittsburgh)
- Simon Gagne (Stanley Cup finalist with Philadelphia)

So out of 11 acquired players that appeared in playoffs for them 9 have either played in Stanley Cup finals or won the Stanley Cup. I'm not saying that's *the* way to do it, but I think if you don't supplement your young talent with people who know what it takes to consistently compete and win in this league...you're doing yourself a huge disservice. There are some exceptions, if you get a Jonathan Toews or a Sidney Crosby personality off the bat, it can be different, but most players don't have that personality type.

 

[slip]

5) The communication comments. Many want to use these one off comments as proof Pegula constantly meddles with the Sabres. I get the impulse. But if we’re being honest, a true controlling owner would have a laundry list of things directly linked to him. Not the occasional comment here or there. Nor would they ever tolerate a GM supposedly ignoring them for 3 years. Could you imagine Jerry Jones doing that?

I definitely believe communications matters to Pegula. But Murray and Botts were both fired for the same reason. They wouldn’t do the one big ask Pegula had for them. Murray wouldn’t fire Bylsma and Botts wouldn’t gut the front office. If they had done those things they would have kept the GM job.

What kind of owner tells his GM to fire the coach? The obnoxious, meddlesome type, obviously.

A longer laundry list of meddling behavior? How about for starters: The Eichel contract. The Skinner contract. The ROR trade to bypass the bonus. Not spending to the cap for the past 5 years. Daily communication with his GM (why?, is he a master evaluator of hockey talent? A brilliant hockey strategist)?

That's an impressive list.

 

[joshjull]

What kind of owner tells his GM to fire the coach? The obnoxious, meddlesome type, obviously.

That same owner gave that GM 3+ years of uninterrupted control to do something. Then decided a change was needed. One act after all that time is hardly owner meddling.

A longer laundry list of meddling behavior? How about for starters: The Eichel contract.

Jack’s contract? Really? That contract was as predictable as the sun rising after McDavid/Drai set the market. Of course the owner would be involved in the negotiations for huge deal like that. I’m sorry but this is grasping at straws.

The Skinner contract.

Botts traded for him, then Skinner had a big year and then Botts extended him. They were obviously going to extend him. It was big overpayment, a bad contract and obviously the owner signed off on it. But in what way is this an example of an owner meddling? He didn’t make Botts trade for him or chose to extend him.

The ROR trade to bypass the bonus.

Botts, not Pegula, chose to trade ROR because he felt the locker room needed a shake up. Botts had been shopping him since January. The speculation was after Botts chose to trade ROR that Pegula wanted it done before the bonus was paid. I’m certainly one of those that felt it was possible.

But again, thats not an owner meddling. Thats an owner reacting to a decision his GM made to want to trade ROR by asking for it to happen before the bonus. Meddling would be Pegula ordering Botts to trade ROR in the first place because he didn’t want to pay his bonus. But that didn’t happen.

Botts tried to make a deal for 6 months. That he couldn’t pull if off until hours before the bonus was due is on him.

Not spending to the cap for the past 5 years.

Not this again.
- 2mil shy of upper limit. (About 19mil above lower limit).
- near lower limit
- At lower limit
- just above the midpoint (12mil above lower limit)
-this year between the midpoint/upper limit (16mil above lower limit)

There is a fairly obvious team building explanation; tried to build a winner, failed, went with youth and then starting paying the youth.

Simply not spending to the upper limit is not evidence of an owner imposed budget. But I’m all ears if you feel there is one and its not the team building explanation. Lay it out.

Daily communication with his GM (why?, is he a master evaluator of hockey talent? A brilliant hockey strategist)

Unless you have evidence hes telling him what to do, who cares. He owns the team and can talk to him as much as he wants.

 

[slip]

Unless you have evidence hes telling him what to do, who cares. He owns the team and can talk to him as much as he wants.

The evidence of Pegula's incessant meddling is missing the playoffs for 14 straight years. Youi don't suck that long by chance. Clearly there is somebody in the organization who is consistently doing the wrong thing at all times. 4 gms, countless coaches, a boatload of high end first rounders, multiple UFA signings, yet here we are, a bottom 3 team in the league.

You really think bad luck explains our situation? To paraphrase Ian Fleming, missing the playoffs for 3-4 years is happenstance. Missing it for the next 3-4 is coincidence. After 14 years, it's idiot action.

Only one idiot here that entire time.