Jason Botterill Discussion 3

[Jim Bob]

The Astros opened baseball ops to McKinsey consultants, from...

I wish the Sabres would try something like this.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

The Astros opened baseball ops to McKinsey consultants, from...

I wish the Sabres would try something like this.

I'd say its about time the teams entered the early 80s.

 

[Buffaloed]

The Astros opened baseball ops to McKinsey consultants, from...

I wish the Sabres would try something like this.

I think the Pegula's did hire a management consulting firm when they fired Rex, Doug, Dan, and Tim. I think that was that was the last straw. The events that finally convinced them they couldn't do it all on their own and needed professional outside help.

Kim Pegula: 'It was a lot of different things' that led to recent PSE changes

I think there's an invisible hand guiding her.

 

[Jim Bob]

I think the Pegula's did hire a management consulting firm when they fired Rex, Doug, Dan, and Tim. I think that was that was the last straw. The events that finally convinced them they couldn't do it all on their own and needed professional outside help.

Kim Pegula: 'It was a lot of different things' that led to recent PSE changes

I think there's an invisible hand guiding her.

Yeah, but I doubt they hired someone to look specifically at the hockey ops part of the operation.

Lots of pro teams have consultants help with the business ops side of the house.

 

[Buffaloed]

Yeah, but I doubt they hired someone to look specifically at the hockey ops part of the operation.

Lots of pro teams have consultants help with the business ops side of the house.

I think it does extend to the teams. There's a high degree of organization and delegation of responsibilities in the front offices that's never been seen before. There's also a lot more talent. They're not afraid to hire competent people because they're seen as a threat. The Sabres have 3-4 guys that could be GM's. The Bills have a ridiculous amount of talent in the player personnel dept. The football team is run by football people, and the hockey team is run by hockey people, except when Terry throws a hissy fit.

 

[Jim Bob]

I think it does extend to the teams. There's a high degree of organization and delegation of responsibilities in the front offices that's never been seen before. There's also a lot more talent. They're not afraid to hire competent people because they're seen as a threat. The Sabres have 3-4 guys that could be GM's. The Bills have a ridiculous amount of talent in the player personnel dept. The football team is run by football people, and the hockey team is run by hockey people, except when Terry throws a hissy fit.

The Sabres also have a one person analytics department and trail loads on teams in the league in that regard.

 

[Fezzy126]

The Sabres also have a one person analytics department and trail loads on teams in the league in that regard.

I've read this before and it's kind of misleading



Almost every team has 1, 2 or no one completely dedicated to analytics outside of Toronto. Even teams that have multiple people, those guys wear different hats. For example, Chayka is listed under the Yotes 'Analytics Department'. Montreal has Sedgwick, Allard, and Leblanc listed under their analytics department, but none are explicitly dedicated to data analysis.

The Sabres easily could have listed their Sports Science staff, video staff, people from the executive level team. That being said, I'd say everyone is pretty much at the same level outside of Toronto. And nothing about the amount of personnel says anything about how analytics is integrated within the organization. If the analysis isn't adopted from the top down, it doesn't matter how many people are employed.

This isn't to say I think the Sabres are doing a good job, I just don't think the outside view of 'analytics department' size tells us anything.

 

[Buffaloed]

The Sabres also have a one person analytics department and trail loads on teams in the league in that regard.

All you need is a coach that can use an iPad and chew gum at the same time.
NHL Adds On-Bench Analytics to iPads in New SAP Deal
NHL Develops An App Allowing In-Game Stats And Analytics On The Bench

A management consultant would look at the analytics resources in development and already available through the league and question whether it's worth it for a team to invest a lot in it's own analytics dept. I think the tracking technology being developed is going to be a game changer and lead to the development of better models.
Why the Hockey Analytics Revolution May Be Its Own Undoing

 

[Baccus]

I think one of the twitter analytics people had an interesting comment that they thought only around 5 teams were actually ready/prepared for the influx of data coming with player tracking.

I can't decide if I should feel better or worse if it's true as I haven't seen any indication the Sabres would be one of those teams, on the other hand, they won't be alone.

The Sabres easily could have listed their Sports Science staff, video staff, people from the executive level team. That being said, I'd say everyone is pretty much at the same level outside of Toronto. And nothing about the amount of personnel says anything about how analytics is integrated within the organization. If the analysis isn't adopted from the top down, it doesn't matter how many people are employed.

This isn't to say I think the Sabres are doing a good job, I just don't think the outside view of 'analytics department' size tells us anything.

I don't think it's about padding the numbers of people specifically in/on the analytics department. Housley's comments several times last year made it clear either he and/or the team had some pretty divergent views from public analytics of what were pretty basic counting stats on shots.

Also I think it's pretty clear that Toronto, Carolina and probably NJ are going pretty deep into it. Minnesota got rid of two highly respected people (at a minimum), but it shows that if the team management structure isn't buying into it, it's pretty freaking irrelevant how big/good your analytics are, so very much agree with the bolded.

Carolina I think may be ahead of everybody else, in at least how they are operating via collecting later draft picks and other things. Though them and Toronto are at vastly different win now/versus budget, so that may be why you get a more seemingly public viewing of actions by Carolina.

I have hopes Krueger encourages more of it, even on just a sports science level in the background (somebody please fix the seemingly long running injury issues). Though I'm quickly approaching the viewpoint that right now Krueger is being crowned far too many different savior roles (motivator! analytics! future hockey ops! etc), and I think I'll wait to see which if any pan out before getting too hopeful.

 

[brian_griffin]

The Astros opened baseball ops to McKinsey consultants, from...

I wish the Sabres would try something like this.

Outside assessments are fine, but perhaps I'm a little cynical about McKinsey specifically. I have not worked with them directly, but have been asked to. With no malice intended to anyone who may work for them on these boards...My paraphrase of past engagement requests:
Consultant: "Corporate has directed you work with us to save money on high-dollar spend item X."
b_g: "Item X is a custom proprietary solution which took years to jointly develop, which is why it is both expensive and currently sole-sourced. It is not a commodity and there are no current alternatives. I fully welcome an alternate supplier or technical solution. We have an active internal workstream to develop alternate supplier capability. We remain unaware of alternative solutions for X. Does your organization have direct technical expertise in developing alternate solutions for X which don't currently exist, and/or developing alternate supplier capability to manufacture X?
Consultant: "No."
b_g: "So you have no expertise or capability in this area, and admittedly can't help, but want me to keep doing my work, then you'll take credit for it and be paid a fraction of the cost savings if/when it's successful?"
Consultant: "well..."
b_g: "Take item X off your opportunity list."

I think the Pegula's did hire a management consulting firm when they fired Rex, Doug, Dan, and Tim. I think that was that was the last straw. The events that finally convinced them they couldn't do it all on their own and needed professional outside help.

Kim Pegula: 'It was a lot of different things' that led to recent PSE changes

I think there's an invisible hand guiding her.

I am the puppet master

 

[Buffaloed]

It's nice to see the Sabres with so many legitimate prospects drafted outside of the first 2 rounds. Director of amateur scouting, Ryan Jankowki may be a budding superstar. The latter 3 are from the Murray years. 2019 draft not included.
Cronholm, Pekar, Laaksonen, Bryson, Weissbach, Kukkonen, Worge-Kreu, Borgen, Olofsson, Fitzgerald

 

[K8fool]

I believe in evil genius jo boo , ma he spill maroon everywhere wih his moves

 

[sabremike]

I think one of the twitter analytics people had an interesting comment that they thought only around 5 teams were actually ready/prepared for the influx of data coming with player tracking.

I can't decide if I should feel better or worse if it's true as I haven't seen any indication the Sabres would be one of those teams, on the other hand, they won't be alone.




I don't think it's about padding the numbers of people specifically in/on the analytics department. Housley's comments several times last year made it clear either he and/or the team had some pretty divergent views from public analytics of what were pretty basic counting stats on shots.

Also I think it's pretty clear that Toronto, Carolina and probably NJ are going pretty deep into it. Minnesota got rid of two highly respected people (at a minimum), but it shows that if the team management structure isn't buying into it, it's pretty freaking irrelevant how big/good your analytics are, so very much agree with the bolded.

Carolina I think may be ahead of everybody else, in at least how they are operating via collecting later draft picks and other things. Though them and Toronto are at vastly different win now/versus budget, so that may be why you get a more seemingly public viewing of actions by Carolina.

I have hopes Krueger encourages more of it, even on just a sports science level in the background (somebody please fix the seemingly long running injury issues). Though I'm quickly approaching the viewpoint that right now Krueger is being crowned far too many different savior roles (motivator! analytics! future hockey ops! etc), and I think I'll wait to see which if any pan out before getting too hopeful.

You can say plenty about Dundon both good and bad but the absolute best thing is that he is trying to get ahead of the curve. That alone makes him smarter than at least 90% of other owners or executives. If you are chasing the latest trend and not setting it you aren't winning anything.

 

[Crazy Tasty]

I've read this before and it's kind of misleading



Almost every team has 1, 2 or no one completely dedicated to analytics outside of Toronto. Even teams that have multiple people, those guys wear different hats. For example, Chayka is listed under the Yotes 'Analytics Department'. Montreal has Sedgwick, Allard, and Leblanc listed under their analytics department, but none are explicitly dedicated to data analysis.

The Sabres easily could have listed their Sports Science staff, video staff, people from the executive level team. That being said, I'd say everyone is pretty much at the same level outside of Toronto. And nothing about the amount of personnel says anything about how analytics is integrated within the organization. If the analysis isn't adopted from the top down, it doesn't matter how many people are employed.

This isn't to say I think the Sabres are doing a good job, I just don't think the outside view of 'analytics department' size tells us anything.

It just lists the director of the Sabres department, he apparently has a large staff (WGR article in Feb 2019).

 

[MayDayMayDay]

New fave Botts hire: Maddy Glab. 8+ years in hockey heaven and we finally have our first angel!

Hellooooooo Maddy!

(I realize it probably wasn't his call, but I didn't know where else to post this.)

 

[Buffaloed]

6 memorable moments from Day 2 of the Blackhawks Convention, including Patrick Kane getting burned and a 2010 Stanley Cup reunion

During a panel with the leaders of the team’s hockey operations, senior vice president Al MacIsaac took a question about how the team uses analytics.

Hockey analytics are widely available to the public through many websites, but NHL teams — the Hawks included — have their own proprietary methods for interpreting stats that is cloaked in mystery.

Interesting Quote: “If your team is really an analytics-based team, you’re not talking about your analytics. As you can tell, I”m not going to tell you anything."

 

[itwasaforwardpass]

 

[Fezzy126]

Moving this to the appropriate thread...

Yeah, it's ironic that Sakic got WAY more for ROR than we did and the guy wasn't even under contract. Maybe take off your home team goggles for a second and you'll be slightly less biased.

Oh, I'm sorry, you're right...

*Checks Sakic's history (again)

This looks like a list of elite GM moves... Let's check the trades:

Joe Sakic - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Yup, Sakic has the Duchene trade to hang his hat on, the Mackinnon contract, and other than that it's a bunch of crap. They also have no meaningful non-first round picks this entire decade. None. He's just sucked long enough for their lottery picks to carry them to relevance (Chevy did the same, and you're about to see them self destruct now that's it's time for all their young guns get paid).

Sure, you wanna say Botts is bad, go ahead. But Sakic's trading of ROR and hiring of Roy aren't exactly winning moves. Until we see the results of the moves for Skinner (already good), Pilut, Joker, Montour, Miller, Johansson, and Vesey you're just complaining out of bitterness. I'm not a homer, I'm a realist. My point still stands, Sakic is no better than Botts.

 

[Aladyyn]

Botterill really doesn't stand out from the masses of "meh" GMs in the NHL. You could call him the best in the league and after thinking about it for a bit, I probably wouldn't even argue with you.

 

[Snippit]

I like his moves this summer but he still pulled off one of the worst trades of this decade...that's hard for a franchise to recover from

 

[Tage2Tuch]

I like his moves this summer but he still pulled off one of the worst trades of this decade...that's hard for a franchise to recover from

Its important to keep things in perspective though. He had to move ROR with ownership down his neck, some Fan response after his comments and Finishing dead last. As well as dealing him the day before a million dollar bonus kicked in was no accident.

I’ll totally own the fact I was completely wrong in my assessment of the deal, we lost and we will never make the trade look good
We lost big. I was very wrong. But this guy has been pretty unreal since.

However this perspective thing I mention is ROR was heading no where but dead last if the blues didn’t get Craig berube and a goalie. I mean some people say that but half a season is a long damn projection. American thanksgiving gives 80 percent of the league a foo indicator of where they will finish and this was two months after that! That’s where he was in January and he was leading the team in scoring by a little at that point nearly halfway through the season so this narrative some paint about him changing the blues is funny....he did win the conn smythe but I found that very, very arguable. It’s for the playoffs not just the finals like the nba, in the finals he was the best player but wasn’t even the best player in the most important game in that series. He did next to nothing in the first three rounds compared to others and Binnington probably deserved it more with peitrangelo as my first pick, goalie 2, ROR and Schwartz coming third and fourth respectively if it was me voting.

That and Colin Miller is now apart of the deal and if tage can be a good depth player along with Ryan Johnson becoming anything which is likely it can still look better, but yeah we lost and I was way wrong lol.

I still like everything else he did, he managed to grab skinner and then take a forty goal scorer out of free agency to give Eichel something to work with.

Adding Jokiharju for Nylander was a crime and let’s not forget, what we added skinner for to begin with....cliff freakin pu. Botterill is totally rocking it right now and montour? Name one team that wouldn’t love Brandon montour in their top four. Maybe there’s a few but that’s about it.

Olofsson, UPL, Dahlin, yeah done of that was a given but even the Marcus Johansson thing was huge. Bruins fans called him their heart. Vesey was interesting...and some GMs wouldn’t of had the stones to fire housley after just two years, I get that he hired him but hindsight is a wonderful thing and all the more credit to him for owning his hiring mistake and fixing it by firing housley, some could argue after one year would be better but how realistic is that, especially with his name and what he was to This franchise as a player, if coach K is a good coach them Botts has honestly made up For the trade all things considered IMO.

I’ll repeat for anyone who didn’t read my posts in the full length because I get those people are out there, I own being wrong about ror trade and I know we can never win but all of the other things plus the perspective I pointed out above shows me this guy can be really good. Still more left to prove but I like what I’m seeing.

He turned cliff pu, a first, Alex Nylander into Jeff Skinner, Brandon montour and Henri Jokiharju. I would of wanted zuccarello but Johansson was second on my list so was very pleased when that happened.

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

I like his moves this summer but he still pulled off one of the worst trades of this decade...that's hard for a franchise to recover from

His most egregious sin was Housley by a long shot

 

[Doug Prishpreed]

Botterill really doesn't stand out from the masses of "meh" GMs in the NHL. You could call him the best in the league and after thinking about it for a bit, I probably wouldn't even argue with you.

Are there really other GMs who hired a coach as bad as Housley?

 

[Dreakon13]

His most egregious sin was Housley by a long shot

Are there really other GMs who hired a coach as bad as Housley?

Housley ended up being a terrible head coach, but I think most GM's make that mistake. He looked pretty savvy coming out of Nashville, and it didn't help that he was a former Sabre great and the owner can be a little fanboy-ish at times. I'd consider it a positive that Botts didn't let it go on any longer than it did. Giving him two years to learn was generous, but not overly alarming IMO.

I don't have a source for this, but I recall reading that Krueger was actually his first choice back then but he had other obligations he didn't want to step away from. Making Housley the Plan B... and we know how Plan B's always seem to turn out for us.

 

[OkimLom]

Housley ended up being a terrible head coach, but I think most GM's make that mistake. He looked pretty savvy coming out of Nashville, and it didn't help that he was a former Sabre great and the owner can be a little fanboy-ish at times. I'd consider it a positive that Botts didn't let it go on any longer than it did. Giving him two years to learn was generous, but not overly alarming IMO.

I don't have a source for this, but I recall reading that Krueger was actually his first choice back then but he had other obligations he didn't want to step away from. Making Housley the Plan B... and we know how Plan B's always seem to turn out for us.

Hiring Housley was the wrong hire without having any hindsight IMO. He didn't check one box that addressed any of the core issues of the team at the time, and he sure as heck didn't have the experience to show he knew how to fix what was wrong with the team. It was your typical, hire the assistant of a successful coach because surely he would learn something from them or we hope he had an impact on those players. Turns out, the players continued to be good players, while the coach looked lost as head coach.

Again as I said in a different thread, in regards to Botts, if he was being pressured to hire Housley by ownership, it falls on him to push back and not hire a guy that hasn't shown to be qualified to right the ship. He was hired to make decisions to HELP the team be competitive, not bend at the owners will. If he's afraid to step on their toes to protect the organization, then he's not the right man for the job.