The Sabres GM and Front Office Thread, Eric Staal hired as Special Asst. to the GM; Jarmo Kekäläinen hired as Senior Advisor

[flashsabre]

We dont need someone to learn here. There is nothing to learn from the group of never-has-beens they have in the front office. The idea of Staal is preposterous.

Need someone to come in and fix the organization.

Hopefully Leafs knock off Florida and Dudley is somehow convinced to come onboard

 

[ValJamesDuex]

Hopefully Leafs knock off Florida and Dudley is somehow convinced to come onboard

Senior Advisor/Vice President only way I see it happening and even then.
He lives in Lewiston so he knows the shi*e show that's going on.

 

[Jim Bob]

How does this refute what you bolded in Ace's post?

The two seem to be in agreement.

Unqualified shills like Forton have gotten the attention of Adams and Pegula and get to make suggestions.

Maybe Forton crys, rather than bangs loudest on the table. But the point stands that unqualified people are the ones feeding the suggestions to the decision makers in Adams/Pegula.

Forton talked directly to how Adams pulls in everyone in the decision making process. We have seen all sorts of videos where people who are often frozen out, and were likely frozen out during the Botterill/Krueger era, are included.

You can argue about the qualifications, and more importantly the size, of the staff. I respect Forton as an amateur scout. He is a hockey lifer that puts in the work.

Adams, especially when it comes to the amateur draft, has created an environment where the scouts and the analytics guys work together and both sides are heard.

There are plenty of valid things to complain about with Adams as GM. However, how he goes about taking in opinions of everyone on staff as they make decisions and somehow only listening to Terry is not a valid critique, IMO.

 

[Jim Bob]

Senior Advisor/Vice President only way I see it happening and even then.
He lives in Lewiston so he knows the shi*e show that's going on.

And I'm guessing Reinhart and others that have gone from the Sabres to the Panthers recently are giving him stay away advice.

 

[TehDoak]

I was doing my morning errands (dropping off kids before work) and it really struck me just how dumb this whole thing is.

You miss the playoffs for 14 straight years.

You hire a GM with no qualifications but the owner trusts him. They give him absolutely no help . Eventually they hire someone who has been an AGM before, but really, other than that, he's been on an island.

His first year goes about as bad as it can go. He bumbles the offseason, the team goes in the toliet. Finishes dead last.

You let him blow up what you have spent the last 10 years building towards. Years of low draft picks, the tank years, etc.

At no point, is any sort of 'outside voice' consultant brought in to say "Well, maybe we shouldn't trade a 24 year old franchise center and 25 year old top line winger"

But they do. They let a guy who has never done anything other than absolutely f*** up 1 NHL offseason go ahead and trade away your franchise building blocks. He embarrasses the organization by letting all the dirty laundry with Eichel get aired out in public.

And for those two pieces, you get a top six forward, a bottom line center, a goalie prospect and some draft picks. For two prime aged franchise forwards.

And now 4 years later, the team still sucks. Shocking, they don't. have the top end talent to be competitive. The roster looks like it was put together by someone who has never put together a NHL roster before. And, to make matters worse, if you try to run back the same roster this summer, you are going to be at the salary cap. How? Through utter, obviously bad, incompetent management.

And the solution to fix ALL of this?

Bring in a senior advisor.

To do what?

Well, he's going to report to Adams. The guy who has done nothing but f*** up since the day he was hired. You want a guy who has "been in the chair" to report to someone who hasn't won a single thing and whose career in hockey 'claim to fame' was being the 3rd line center on the flukiest cup run of all time.

What the literal f*** is the organization trying to accomplish?

 

[sabremike]

I was doing my morning errands (dropping off kids before work) and it really struck me just how dumb this whole thing is.

You miss the playoffs for 14 straight years.

You hire a GM with no qualifications but the owner trusts him. They give him absolutely no help . Eventually they hire someone who has been an AGM before, but really, other than that, he's been on an island.

His first year goes about as bad as it can go. He bumbles the offseason, the team goes in the toliet. Finishes dead last.

You let him blow up what you have spent the last 10 years building towards. Years of low draft picks, the tank years, etc.

At no point, is any sort of 'outside voice' consultant brought in to say "Well, maybe we shouldn't trade a 24 year old franchise center and 25 year old top line winger"

But they do. They let a guy who has never done anything other than absolutely f*** up 1 NHL offseason go ahead and trade away your franchise building blocks. He embarrasses the organization by letting all the dirty laundry with Eichel get aired out in public.

And for those two pieces, you get a top six forward, a bottom line center, a goalie prospect and some draft picks. For two prime aged franchise forwards.

And now 4 years later, the team still sucks. Shocking, they don't. have the top end talent to be competitive. The roster looks like it was put together by someone who has never put together a NHL roster before. And, to make matters worse, if you try to run back the same roster this summer, you are going to be at the salary cap. How? Through utter, obviously bad, incompetent management.

And the solution to fix ALL of this?

Bring in a senior advisor.

To do what?

Well, he's going to report to Adams. The guy who has done nothing but f*** up since the day he was hired. You want a guy who has "been in the chair" to report to someone who hasn't won a single thing and whose career in hockey 'claim to fame' was being the 3rd line center on the flukiest cup run of all time.

What the literal f*** is the organization trying to accomplish?

He's been retired for years but you don't know what I would give to have Jeff Jacobs (Whalers beat writer for the Hartford Courant) as one of the Sabres beat writers. He would not hesitate to shred everyone involved in this catastrophe in the most blunt and entertaining fashion possible (his kicking of Pierre's coaching corpse is arguably the single greatest piece of newspaper writing in hockey history)

 

[flashsabre]

Is Shanahan an option? His contract is up in Toronto and he won’t be brought back.

 

[sabremike]

Is Shanahan an option? His contract is up in Toronto and he won’t be brought back.

Shanahan wouldn't lower himself to work for Terry.

 

[flashsabre]

Shanahan wouldn't lower himself to work for Terry.

If he was offered the POHO role I think he would but it would have to be with the power to can and hire who he wants.

 

[sabremike]

If he was offered the POHO role I think he would but it would have to be with the power to can and hire who he wants.

Unfortunately that's the deal-breaker.

 

[May Day 10]

Unfortunately that's the deal-breaker.

That is the deal-breaker for pretty much anybody.

GM is not moveable. The head coaches for probably the next 5-8 years are already chosen. Everyone needs to weigh in on everything, including the simpleton who owns the team. They are just trying to hire someone's name who can be another voice. Who is going to want to attach their name, career, and legacy on Adams, Pegula, and Appert?
What will/would they even be allowed to do? Make suggestions?

 

[Beerz]

I have never seen Shanahan as one that has helped build teams. I've always seen him as managing the front office and that is about it.

 

[SundherDome]

If Karmanos is really retiring, I would be very interested in seeing if Ryan Bowness would be interested in his job and see if that could coax Rick out of retirement for a remote senior advisor job.

 

[TehDoak]

Is Shanahan an option? His contract is up in Toronto and he won’t be brought back.

I mean, I don't think he'd come on board unless he got a total financial commitment from any owner in terms of spending to the cap and a fully staffed front office.

I don't think he's going to get that from the Pegula family.

If Karmanos is really retiring, I would be very interested in seeing if Ryan Bowness would be interested in his job and see if that could coax Rick out of retirement for a remote senior advisor job.

Has Rick ever been a GM? He was a coach.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

I mean, I don't think he'd come on board unless he got a total financial commitment from any owner in terms of spending to the cap and a fully staffed front office.

I don't think he's going to get that from the Pegula family.



Has Rick ever been a GM? He was a coach.

He’s only ever been a coach, assistant coach, or an associate coach. And once a player-coach.

 

[SundherDome]

I mean, I don't think he'd come on board unless he got a total financial commitment from any owner in terms of spending to the cap and a fully staffed front office.

I don't think he's going to get that from the Pegula family.



Has Rick ever been a GM? He was a coach.

Rick hasn't but he has been around hockey long enough and knows the current game to where he could reasonably be a good senior advisor to Adams.

 

[LamaTabootTaboot]

He’s actually perfectly deserving. A group of mediocre performers in their roles, happy to pretend they’re trying to be competitive at hockey as long as the money keeps flowing to them personally

Dude, I would kill for mediocre performers. That would be a major upgrade.

 

[SundherDome]

Looking at the staffs of our team and others, I didn't realize that we are above the average number of scouts both pro/amateur (we don't list them for some reason) and the Senior Advisor and POHO are hit or miss around the league.

 

[Archie Lee]

I was doing my morning errands (dropping off kids before work) and it really struck me just how dumb this whole thing is.

You miss the playoffs for 14 straight years.

You hire a GM with no qualifications but the owner trusts him. They give him absolutely no help . Eventually they hire someone who has been an AGM before, but really, other than that, he's been on an island.

His first year goes about as bad as it can go. He bumbles the offseason, the team goes in the toliet. Finishes dead last.

You let him blow up what you have spent the last 10 years building towards. Years of low draft picks, the tank years, etc.

At no point, is any sort of 'outside voice' consultant brought in to say "Well, maybe we shouldn't trade a 24 year old franchise center and 25 year old top line winger"

But they do. They let a guy who has never done anything other than absolutely f*** up 1 NHL offseason go ahead and trade away your franchise building blocks. He embarrasses the organization by letting all the dirty laundry with Eichel get aired out in public.

And for those two pieces, you get a top six forward, a bottom line center, a goalie prospect and some draft picks. For two prime aged franchise forwards.

And now 4 years later, the team still sucks. Shocking, they don't. have the top end talent to be competitive. The roster looks like it was put together by someone who has never put together a NHL roster before. And, to make matters worse, if you try to run back the same roster this summer, you are going to be at the salary cap. How? Through utter, obviously bad, incompetent management.

And the solution to fix ALL of this?

Bring in a senior advisor.

To do what?

Well, he's going to report to Adams. The guy who has done nothing but f*** up since the day he was hired. You want a guy who has "been in the chair" to report to someone who hasn't won a single thing and whose career in hockey 'claim to fame' was being the 3rd line center on the flukiest cup run of all time.

What the literal f*** is the organization trying to accomplish?

And, the reason for the tear down in 2021 was the need for a culture change. And, 4 years later, having accomplished nothing, the theme at this year’s deadline was again the need for a culture change. Has a GM ever received the opportunity of overseeing two “culture-change” seasons for the same franchise, 4 seasons apart, with nothing accomplished in the years between?

 

[LamaTabootTaboot]

Obviously record isnt the most important thing at the AHL level but points percentage by coach

Taylor: .619
Appert: .558
Leone: .639

Team got worse when he got there and better when he left...

Also everything I've read here from people that watch them consistently point out that Rochester's defensive play and structure has been just as bad as the big club's, and aside from 1 good year of PP, that was mediocre too. There's just little indication he was doing anything that well. A couple nice playoff runs, but not ready to value that over everything else

Worth noting that leagues are set up so that when teams are bad they should have a strong prospect pool. The Sabres did have a top 3 prospect pool for a while, so a "meh" coach should be "fine" running an AHL team with some of the best prospects in pro hockey.

 

[LamaTabootTaboot]

The Bills decisions are made by McDermott and Beane. The Sabres decisions are made by Pegula and Adams and whoever bangs the table loud enough to get their attention…no matter how qualified they are to make the suggestion.

They really aren’t the same at all.

Beane jingles keys in Pegula’s direction to distract him and runs his team the way McDermott shapes it. Adams does whatever he heard last as long as Terry says it’s ok.

God I wish Terry would try running the Sabres like he does the Bills. Keep trying new leadership until someone makes it work…and stay the f*** out of the way. He’s literally doing the opposite right now.

I think in Terry's mind it is all the same. But McBeane are the only people to manage Pegula well. McBeane manage Pegula as a team. So Terry looks at the org and goes "awesome, we are all a team, and we are all in agreement, we need that with the Sabres". So now they are all in agreement. But they all suck at their jobs.

I guarantee that if Terry hired Nill and DeBoer together as a tandem that the Sabres would run like the Bills because they are on the same page.

Ultimately, they are the same model, but one is super unqualified. McBeane had to have a 17 hour meeting with Terry to review every single Josh Allen snap before they drafted him. I would almost guarantee that was partially because Pegula and somebody else in the building wanted another QB. (Leap frogging the GM).

Do you think Steve Bisciotti is in 17 hour meetings reviewing every snap for their top choice at QB in order to give the OK? Or do you think that he enables his GM to do his job? Do any other owners need 17 hours of convincing right before the draft?

 

[Chainshot]

Looking at the staffs of our team and others, I didn't realize that we are above the average number of scouts both pro/amateur (we don't list them for some reason) and the Senior Advisor and POHO are hit or miss around the league.

It isn't the number of them so much as the quality of them. They bled good scouting minds in the 2000's and never replaced them.

 

[TehDoak]

And, the reason for the tear down in 2021 was the need for a culture change. And, 4 years later, having accomplished nothing, the theme at this year’s deadline was again the need for a culture change. Has a GM ever received the opportunity of overseeing two “culture-change” seasons for the same franchise, 4 seasons apart, with nothing accomplished in the years between?

What bothered me most about 2021 was Adams went out of his way to blame the departing players, labeling them as malcontents (we want players who want to be here) and not that he did a piss poor job making additions to the team the summer before.

Adams has consistently done a very cursory "I have to be better" and "the buck stops with me" in his pressers then quickly pivot to how none of this is his fault. Whether it be the fault of departing players for creating a bad culture, or imaginary player contracts that prevent him from spending to the cap now, to the high taxes and palm tree rant he went on during the 13 game losing streak. And the only thing that gets him more worked about about dodging blame is if you call the owner cheap for spending below the cap floor.

 

[sabremike]

What bothered me most about 2021 was Adams went out of his way to blame the departing players, labeling them as malcontents (we want players who want to be here) and not that he did a piss poor job making additions to the team the summer before.

Adams has consistently done a very cursory "I have to be better" and "the buck stops with me" in his pressers then quickly pivot to how none of this is his fault. Whether it be the fault of departing players for creating a bad culture, or imaginary player contracts that prevent him from spending to the cap now, to the high taxes and palm tree rant he went on during the 13 game losing streak. And the only thing that gets him more worked about about dodging blame is if you call the owner cheap for spending below the cap floor.

Would love to see a media member have a Larry Brooks style go at the guy calling him on his bullshit.

 

[SundherDome]

It isn't the number of them so much as the quality of them. They bled good scouting minds in the 2000's and never replaced them.

Reasonable just noticed some posts that highlighted that we are lacking in quantity when we have the average amount