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Rehashing Old Ground: Adams vs. Botterill vs. Murray vs. Regier...

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Man, the Murray years were so ridiculous. I wish we had more behind close door stories from that time.

So far Adams has been very good but let's hope he doesn't get too timid to make a move. If the answer is to wait for Levi before we're truly competitive, that's a pretty dumb move.
 
Reiger





Adams
Murray




Botterill



I have a bit of a soft spot for Murray because I think he at least had a vision, even if it was flawed and forgot to fortify the defense/goaltending. Botterill got lucky to some extent that Thompson turned into a unicorn because his tenure was a trainwreck otherwise.
 
WhereAreTheCookies said:
That's right, I completely forgot that was when they shifted to the video scouting. What a terrible Idea.
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I remember looking at it once and I think video scouting gets unfair blame

They drafted some good depth in those years, the issue was a few bad 1st rounders, which were probably the guys they saw in person, or had the most viewings
 
On botterill the ror trade at the time was bad but how he handled the 2c problem after by plugging in a guy who had a promising ncaa season but needed more time before being deemed a 2c undoubtedly hindered development we might have a completely different mitts although i do like his game so far and am not down him but mitts could've been developed way better and its due to lazy managing that he had to carve out his current role. With adams I am much happier with our approach and execution of player development.
 
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Regier falled hard in 2005-2011 drafting. That set in motion a lot of failures to come, because there's a missing generation of Sabres (Murray also had a hand in shipping away the few there were).

Murray didn't fail on the tank. He failed on building a team. Bogosian, ROR, Kane, and Lehner, all for different reasons, weren't the leaders to surround a young, cocky prodigy. The apple was rotten from the start.

Botterill failed at team building. He gave the prodigy carte blanche, then proceeded to blow assets adding trivial pieces (Scott Wilson), and outright failing the swings he did make (ROR, Scandella). Sadly, you have to give him credit for the raw talent he left Adams. Dahlin, Samuelsson, Jokiharju, Mittelstadt, Luukkonen, Cozens, Johnson (we'll see), Thompson is, it turns out, a lot of talent. No matter how you slice it, Murray and Regier didn't leave their successor anywhere near this war chest.

Adams has won BIG on the teardown trades, and not just in prospects. Alex Tuch is who we all wanted Eichel to be.

Now Adams has to do the hard part. He has the most talent and assets of any Buffalo GM in history to win a cup. Some patience is definitely still needed (Quinn, Peterka, Savoie, etc.), and some isn't (Bryson, Bryson, Bryson...Bryson).

Sidebar, the best thing about the post-Eichel era....is I don't just get excited for 1 line to come over the boards anymore. Every line can score.
 
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Can't really compare Adams yet. I like others wasn't super high on the hire but so far he's done a lot of really good things, most of all fixing the culture "McDemortt/Beane ish". I am happy he is our guy. Eichel dilemma was handled well and turned in to serviceable players. Donny's promotion. Drafting Quinn and Peterka and his other early drafting seems to be pretty positive (Kulich and Ostlund). Development has been better.

Regier - Wasn't a huge fan initially but over time really appreciated his effort with all the constraints. He built President trophy winners and cup contenders with limited resources. Wasn't proactive enough and the co-captain fiasco was tough but a lot of it came from above him.

Botterill - Liked the hire initially. Said good things initially but struggled to fix a lot of the errors of Murray thanks to bad coaching hires. Did some good things (a lot of pieces that are here and better are because of him), Cozens looks to be a stud as a PPG 2-way future captain. He was criticized for taking him. ROR trade initially looked bleak but now looks amazing with Tage turning into a 100+ point player and Rocket Richard trophy candidate on a long-term cheap deal. Some bad depth moves and failure to sign free agents to move the needle forward hurt him. He also did some dumb things (toronto pick trade, allegedly field offers for Tage for scraps, etc.)

Murray - Didn't love the hire because didn't think he was a name coming up as the next great GM like some of the others that were interviewed were. Hired by LaFontaine, then LaFontaine leaves over a disagreement with him was a bad look. He made the Sabres the joke are (were) until now. He inherited so many draft picks from Regier and overspent and made many bad trades. He didn't value culture or organization like Adams does and there were multiple curfew and locker room issues with leadership. Coaching hires weren't fantastic although Bylsma made sense. The open tanking to strip this team of everything and then his stupid comments when losing the lottery were awful. Bad FA signings. Drafting was poor. Murray was the worse by far.

Hopefully Adams



Regier

Botterill




Murray
 
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What's unfortunate is I think the original rebuild with Murray was doomed from the start in retrospect. Even if they took the slower method and kept their prospects (Myers, Grigorenko, Zadorov, Compher, Armia, Lemieux etc) those guys weren't going to be built into a winner. Years of poor drafting set the entire thing behind, though those early 2010's drafts didn't have a lot of great talent in them outside of the top 5 or so picks.

Murray was still a bozo, but he inherited a weak prospect pool looking back at it and how the players turned out.
 
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WhereAreTheCookies said:
What's unfortunate is I think the original rebuild with Murray was doomed from the start in retrospect. Even if they took the slower method and kept their prospects (Myers, Grigorenko, Zadorov, Compher, Armia, Lemieux etc) those guys weren't going to be built into a winner. Years of poor drafting set the entire thing behind, though those early 2010's drafts didn't have a lot of great talent in them outside of the top 5 or so picks.

Murray was still a bozo, but he inherited a weak prospect pool looking back at it and how the players turned out.
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McCabb might be the best of the bunch.
 
WhereAreTheCookies said:
What's unfortunate is I think the original rebuild with Murray was doomed from the start in retrospect. Even if they took the slower method and kept their prospects (Myers, Grigorenko, Zadorov, Compher, Armia, Lemieux etc) those guys weren't going to be built into a winner. Years of poor drafting set the entire thing behind, though those early 2010's drafts didn't have a lot of great talent in them outside of the top 5 or so picks.

Murray was still a bozo, but he inherited a weak prospect pool looking back at it and how the players turned out.
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But the 2015 draft alone would have made up a huge portion of that.

Moulson - Eichel - Reinhart
Ennis - Aho - Boeser
Foligno - Compher - Armia
Girgensons - Larsson - Roslovic

Gorges - Myers
Zadorov - Ristolainen
McCabe - Pysyk

Bolded the players we could have drafted or kept in trades, not counting Stafford, Chris Stewart, Girgorenko, Mike Weber or a few others that could have been traded to shore up the prospect pool. Not awesome but definitely a decent group to move forward with. Of course Bylsma and the following HCs that Botts hired would make the roster a moot point to some extent.
 
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Sabresfansince1980 said:
But the 2015 draft alone would have made up a huge portion of that.

Moulson - Eichel - Reinhart
Ennis - Aho - Boeser
Foligno - Compher - Armia
Girgensons - Larsson - Roslovic

Gorges - Myers
Zadorov - Ristolainen
McCabe - Pysyk

Bolded the players we could have drafted or kept in trades, not counting Stafford, Chris Stewart, Girgorenko, Mike Weber or a few others that could have been traded to shore up the prospect pool. Not awesome but definitely a decent group to move forward with. Of course Bylsma and the following HCs that Botts hired would make the roster a moot point to some extent.
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I mean yes we could have drafted Aho and Boeser. We also could have drafted Draisaitl in 2014, or Demko, or Point etc. There's really no telling who was on their radar in 2015. Given what we know of Murray he also may have selected far different players in those slots.

Even then, does that defensive unit look remotely good to you knowing what we know now about those players?
 
Sabresfansince1980 said:
But the 2015 draft alone would have made up a huge portion of that.

Moulson - Eichel - Reinhart
Ennis - Aho - Boeser
Foligno - Compher - Armia
Girgensons - Larsson - Roslovic

Gorges - Myers
Zadorov - Ristolainen
McCabe - Pysyk

Bolded the players we could have drafted or kept in trades, not counting Stafford, Chris Stewart, Girgorenko, Mike Weber or a few others that could have been traded to shore up the prospect pool. Not awesome but definitely a decent group to move forward with. Of course Bylsma and the following HCs that Botts hired would make the roster a moot point to some extent.
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I do this what-about-ism all the time reversing the 3 Murray trades, and I never, ever land on a reasonable, rational good defense.
 
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WhereAreTheCookies said:
I mean yes we could have drafted Aho and Boeser. We also could have drafted Draisaitl in 2014, or Demko, or Point etc. There's really no telling who was on their radar in 2015. Given what we know of Murray he also may have selected far different players in those slots.

Even then, does that defensive unit look remotely good to you knowing what we know now about those players?
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Murray would have made dumb draft selections, and the defense would have to be improved upon...but that's not the point. The 2015 draft would have been a big injection of talent to the club and make up for a dry prospect pool. The fact that TM wasted the chance, and ALSO would have wasted the draft selections, just shows what a horrible GM he was.
 
Chainshot said:
The Quinn 1.0 debacle - losing coach of the year and GM of the year to replace both with guys he thought he could have influence over after he spent time hobnobbing with Terry O'Reilly but instead stumbles into someone in Regier who was able to polish what he got from Mucks, then retool that to build the Co-caps teams as well as the hiring of arguably the most successful coach in franchise history in Ruff. It wasn't a given that a quiet Islander ass't GM who Torrey was grooming as a possible replacement would have the spine he had, for as much as I disliked some of Regier's foot-dragging, he got results. He dealt with multiple sets of dysfunctional owners, the team going into bankruptcy, and often being at the impact of monetary issues on the ice and in his operations.

That said, he should've been sacked the day Pegs took over. :P
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Quinn…….. Anger rising
 
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Me to this thread:

1673297863849.png
 
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Sabresfansince1980 said:
But the 2015 draft alone would have made up a huge portion of that.

Moulson - Eichel - Reinhart
Ennis - Aho - Boeser
Foligno - Compher - Armia
Girgensons - Larsson - Roslovic

Gorges - Myers
Zadorov - Ristolainen
McCabe - Pysyk

Bolded the players we could have drafted or kept in trades, not counting Stafford, Chris Stewart, Girgorenko, Mike Weber or a few others that could have been traded to shore up the prospect pool. Not awesome but definitely a decent group to move forward with. Of course Bylsma and the following HCs that Botts hired would make the roster a moot point to some extent.
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That still implies that Aho or Boeser turn out like they have in their current situations. I have my doubts that the detail demanded of players playing for Brind'Amour is present in Buffalo for Aho for one. The place was a mess.
 
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Adams is ahead of Botts and Murray at least. Time will tell if he surpasses Regier who was an above average GM in my book.
 
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KA's biggest weakness has been goaltending. If UPL indeed turns out (and they can sign him again) and Comrie can be a capable backup (tbd) until Levi is ready hopefully that can wipe out huge loss of Ullmark.

KA letting his staff for the most part do their jobs has been his strength so far along with treating people with respect.
 
Dubi Doo said:
Adams is ahead of Botts and Murray at least. Time will tell if he surpasses Regier who was an above average GM in my book.
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Who are his trade or free agent acquisitions again?

It's interesting to me that Adams has somehow eclipsed Botts.
 
DustyZ said:
Who are his trade or free agent acquisitions again?
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Well for starters, Adams made the Risto trade. Somehow got a 1st and 2nd for him.
Traded Reinhart for Levi and a 1st.
Traded Eichel for a haul.

FA pickups are a little more "meh", with Taylor Hall, Eric Staal, Cody Eakin and Ilya Lyubushkin being the bigger fish.
 
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