Around the League - 2019/20 Season Edition #2

[ACC1224]

I remember good times with Stavros.

He was a great man, very humble for a very rich man.
Once Knob Hill started tanking he started taking money away from the Leafs. Leafs were always #3 for him, his horses and Knob Hill were always more important.

 

[stickty111]

The criticism with Eakins in Edmonton was him being too strict, now with Ducks too soft.
All though Murray was pretty positive on Eakins, but he might not have been comfortable with him as coach.

 

[ShaneFalco]

 

[Isaac Nootin]

Lol @ Buffalo.

I'd be very concerned if I were a fan of that team as long as the Pegulas are running the show.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

The Pegulas are running that franchise into the ground. The Bills they seem to have figured out, but the Sabres continue to be a tire fire under their stewardship. One month Botterill has their vote of confidence, the next they have “philosophical differences” so he needs to go. What a gong show.

 

[zeke]

hopefully for them Adams is good (i have no idea). hardworking player at least.

But Botteril absolutely had to go. this was well overdue. He was a horrendous gm.

 

[ACC1224]

The Pegulas are running that franchise into the ground. The Bills they seem to have figured out, but the Sabres continue to be a tire fire under their stewardship. One month Botterill has their vote of confidence, the next they have “philosophical differences” so he needs to go. What a gong show.

Bolded is one of the most meaningless terms in sports.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Lol if only this were a real quote.

 

[Menzinger]

Sabres are a tire fire at the moment.

A few folks on twitter are saying a large part of their scouting department is being fired right now

 

[stickty111]

Firing Taylor seems like a strange move. This is the Sabres though.

 

[Gabriel426]

At least Sabres owners are showing they care about the team is willing to spend....Thats probably the silver lining for their fans.

 

[BertCorbeau]

I mean in fairness to the ownership group, they committed to a full blown rebuild by tanking and going through the draft. Once they had a nice collection of youngsters in the pipelines they attempted to spend money to supplant that core.

In theory that's how it goes. Except their player development has been poor, their signings have been bad, and their trades have not been smart. Ownership meddling and catering to their young superstar player (who shows no personal accountability for the team losing) makes it worse.

Simply put, ownership hired the wrong people to make decisions, got involved when they shouldn't have, and it's ruined a promising start.

 

[Menzinger]

I mean in fairness to the ownership group, they committed to a full blown rebuild by tanking and going through the draft. Once they had a nice collection of youngsters in the pipelines they attempted to spend money to supplant that core.

In theory that's how it goes. Except their player development has been poor, their signings have been bad, and their trades have not been smart. Ownership meddling and catering to their young superstar player (who shows no personal accountability for the team losing) makes it worse.

Simply put, ownership hired the wrong people to make decisions, got involved when they shouldn't have, and it's ruined a promising start.

Its a good lesson that a rebuild is not a guarantee to success. Lots of things need to go right (including a bit of luck at the right times) for things to work out.

That said, they have two star talents at centre and now D (soon to be star at least) a semi-compotent GM should have been able to move that team forward a bit more than what went on

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Firing Taylor seems like a strange move. This is the Sabres though.

Well Rochester has not exactly been an amazing team, despite their record. They lacked any kind of real prospects or prospect development, and mostly won based on vets who were good AHLers but had no future in the NHL.

Essentially, it was like the Eakin-Marlies. We had some good teams, but there were few good prospects on those teams, and a lot of prospects failed to develop.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

hopefully for them Adams is good (i have no idea). hardworking player at least.

But Botteril absolutely had to go. this was well overdue. He was a horrendous gm.

I don't think it really matters how good he is. It seems like the Pegulas want their say, and their goal seems to be saving money

 

[Menzinger]

Adams looks like he may just be a "yes man" for ownership.

They already fired him once before when he was an assistant coach

 

[93LEAFS]

This is a joke.

We will see where the league stands when a bunch of scouts contracts run-out on July 1st. The reason some teams wanted a June draft was so they could furlough or outright not retain scouts on July 1st. I think what Sabres did was extreme, but it will be interesting to see what some teams do. Teams draft boards could be known among teams like we've never seen before. Sounds like the Pegula's have serious liquidity problems and everything but the Bills in PSE are hemorrhaging money. That combined with the natural gas market being low previous to Covid (and currently insanely low) has put the squeeze on them.

I don't think Jankowski as a good hire as a scouting director, but 2 drafts is hardly enough time to make any kind of concrete judgment on them. Especially when their first pick in 2018 was so obvious. I mean, there are maybe 4 currently impactful NHLers from the last 2 drafts in the league right now (Dahlin, Svechnikov, Hughes, and Tkachuk).

I'm completely get firing Botts on his performance. But, between his endorsement 3 weeks ago and now this, all that changed was he wasn't willing to sully his name in the hockey community by purging a scouting department to likely replace it with something like video scouting.

 

[Menzinger]

Its a bloodbath

 

[hockeywiz542]

Kevyn Adams is introduced as the new Sabres general manager on a call with owners Terry and Kim Pegula, coach Ralph Krueger and Buffalo media.

 

[Menzinger]

Wonder if the Sabres may be now looking to dump expensive (or soon to be expensive) contracts

 

[93LEAFS]

Wonder if the Sabres may be now looking to dump expensive (or soon to be expensive) contracts

I can't see them being so cheap they move Eichel, unless they don't care about a full on fan revolt. I'd add Dahlin

Who else can they really cut costs with? Skinner has a full NMC and signed/accepted a trade there because he wanted to be close to home (and with a full NMC and that deal he isn't going to be very movable). Can't see anyone touching Okposo without value added. Basically leaves Risto. Plus, I doubt many NHL teams are lining up to take on contracts right now without sending salary back.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Its a bloodbath

It's Leafs circa. 2014.

I don't think the Leafs really need any scouts, nor would they really be interested in many of them, but who knows.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Wonder if the Sabres may be now looking to dump expensive (or soon to be expensive) contracts

Most of their contracts are expiring anyways.

Ristolainen, Okposo or Miller is really it... Maybe Montour, Johansson, Reinhart or McCabe. They are not getting much value for anything except Reinhart and maybe Ristolainen, and have very little in terms of prospects coming through either.

Unless they get really lucky with a guy like Lafreniere, it's going to be another 5 years at least for them.

 

[93LEAFS]

It's Leafs circa. 2014.

I don't think the Leafs really need any scouts, nor would they really be interested in many of them, but who knows.

A purge of the level the Sabres just did is unheard of. Leafs scouting purge was also the end of 2015 (with many people still kept around, for example, Dave Morrison was shifted to pro-scouting, they kept Bergmann, John Lilley, Malarchek, Hofford was already on staff, etc). We made moves after having Hunter evaluate the staff for the entire year. Quite a few people were fired, but we kept probably 40% to 50%. The Sabres just purged their entire scouting department and it seems player development staff. This is clearly economic-based more than performance.