If you called the shots, who goes?

[MarkusKetterer]

Harsh! I keep hoping he’ll improve like Rayzor has, but so far it’s not happening.


Imagine needing 5 year to get to the playoffs. I just can’t fathom how this is acceptable by anyone, in any sport. Much less hockey, when it’s super easy to make the playoffs by dumb luck.

Unfortunately they’re trying to make the playoffs with smart luck.

 

[Jim Bob]

What absolutely HAS TO be done is the hiring of a legitimate hockey man to run the organization, tell him he has the control to do whatever he wants to do, and the owner step the hell out of the way.

Now, if I was that hockey guy running the show, Granato and Adams would be shown the door by the time the ink dried on my contract.

I would then hire a GM that has been there and done that for multiple years with success and let that GM immediately hire his own head coach and let him sculpt the roster the way he wished.

Would we win a championship?

Who knows.

Would it work and would we become relevant again?

Yes. Yes we would. As long as the idiot owner stayed the hell out of the way.

Who would be your top 3 candidates for the GM job?

Whenever fans talk in generalities about GMs (and coaches) that have been there and done that, I find that it is challenging to find any candidates that are the locks to work out like the theoretical conversation without names makes it out to be.

Ken Holland in Detroit vs in Edmonton and Steve Yzerman in TB vs in Detroit are two examples of how GMs in new places do not lead to the improved results that many expect.

 

[Jim Bob]

I'm not defending Adam's last 2 summers. Both were failures to me.

If you want a President of Hockey Ops, I'm all for it.

I think firing Adams right now is a mistake. A massive one. Adams built this pipeline. It's still strong. I want him to be accountable for it. Not for another jack-off to come in and tell us he's on a 5-year plan to get the Sabres back to the playoffs.

Adams has this summer and next season for me. After that will depend on 24-25's result. His 5-year plan will be at year 5.

If I were to fall into a ton of money and were to be able to make Terry Pegula an offer he could not refuse for his two hockey teams and two NLL teams, I would not immediately fire Kevyn Adams. But, I would sit him down and have some in-depth conversations about his approach to building the roster to date and into the future. I would also get a sense of how tied to Don Granato he is.

I would not be inclined to keep Adams as the GM if he wanted to remain on the really patient draft and develop path and was unwilling to trade some picks and/or prospects for immediate help. I would not be inclined to keep Adams if he was dead set on Granato and his staff being good enough without any changes.

But, I would prefer to keep Adams for the big reason that you mention. Replacing him as the GM very well could mean yet another re-start of the build process.

No thanks.

 

[kirby11]

I swear half the Terry P posts I see say he controls everything and big decisions go through him and he needs to step aside. The other half say we need an owner that cares and is involved, spends the loot and improves the team on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

Which is it?

IMO, they've had the worst of both worlds with him for a while now. He's sometimes seemingly meddled in roster moves (making the RoR trade pre-bonus, being in favor of the over-generous Skinner extension, not wanting them to trade Girgs this deadline) and set the whole "efficient, effective, economic" plan. So they also can't get any out of roster advantages, like expanding their analytics team and/or scouting team, and, barring an unexpected change, it seems like Granato will be back because Terry's done paying folks to not work for him.

 

[Chainshot]

Who would be your top 3 candidates for the GM job?

Whenever fans talk in generalities about GMs (and coaches) that have been there and done that, I find that it is challenging to find any candidates that are the locks to work out like the theoretical conversation without names makes it out to be.

Ken Holland in Detroit vs in Edmonton and Steve Yzerman in TB vs in Detroit are two examples of how GMs in new places do not lead to the improved results that many expect.

I would offer Rick Dudley a pay bump to shift from being the Panthers’ senior advisor to being the Sabres’ senior advisor.

Then the GM need not be some hardened veteran - Darche, Tulsky, maybe Gold from the Bruins get the interview process and figure out who fits.

Then let them hit the HC though looking for someone with some experience and structure to their game.

 

[TehDoak]

# 2 and 5 were bad mistakes, the others much less so. The goaltending was not an issue this season and in fact was a strength. If we had got this level of goaltending last season we make the playoffs easy. Keeping Benson up was not a mistake, he has been one of our better forwards regardless of what the stat sheet says and is an NHL quality player.

We got good goaltending....from Jan 1st on.

It was clear that Comrie had to get replaced. And standard goaltending development is a 1st year pro goes to the AHL.

Comrie has gone 1-7 this season. An average goalie could have gotten us more points and eased the load on UPL, which has caused us to lose points down the stretch as Granato has refused to play Comire at a regular interval and rode UPL.

And yes, Benson should have gone back to Juniors. I get it, he's a high motor player who has played decently...but we need more production and utility out of a winger than Benson provides at this point. The NHL is not a developmental league. Yes, players do develop after they make it to the NHL. But, our struggles in scoring is part of the issue this year. Benson could have spent more time in juniors and still developed more and we should have gotten a more reliable scoring winger in the spot Benson took.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Depends if Adams fires Granato soon. If he doesn't, then he can sink on the ship with Donny.

 

[TehDoak]

I would offer Rick Dudley a pay bump to shift from being the Panthers’ senior advisor to being the Sabres’ senior advisor.

Then the GM need not be some hardened veteran - Darche, Tulsky, maybe Gold from the Bruins get the interview process and figure out who fits.

Then let them hit the HC though looking for someone with some experience and structure to their game.

100% on board with this. At the very minimum we need a fresh set of eyes on the organizational structure and start running this like a real team, not a small family business.

 

[sabremike]

We got good goaltending....from Jan 1st on.

It was clear that Comrie had to get replaced. And standard goaltending development is a 1st year pro goes to the AHL.

Comrie has gone 1-7 this season. An average goalie could have gotten us more points and eased the load on UPL, which has caused us to lose points down the stretch as Granato has refused to play Comire at a regular interval and rode UPL.

And yes, Benson should have gone back to Juniors. I get it, he's a high motor player who has played decently...but we need more production and utility out of a winger than Benson provides at this point. The NHL is not a developmental league. Yes, players do develop after they make it to the NHL. But, our struggles in scoring is part of the issue this year. Benson could have spent more time in juniors and still developed more and we should have gotten a more reliable scoring winger in the spot Benson took.

The fact that the goaltending the first few months of the season was actually stealing lots of games we had zero business winning is something that appears to have been forgotten. Had it been as bad as last season we would've been close to Sharks/Hawks territory in those first few months.

 

[KeyserSoze81]

The energy I feel when I read this question is best matched and answered by Gary Oldman's character in Léon:

I am at the same place with Adams as I was with Botterill: if he is willing to waste a season when everyone else in the world can see the problem is coaching, what are we doing here? If he is so unwilling to make a decision about goalies that he carries three of them for nearly half of the season, while not clearly communicating a plan to one of them in Comrie, again - why is he serving as an executive?

You cannot ignore problems continuously and hope they get better, as they rarely do. You have to make decisions. Some of them will be wrong, but you make the best ones that you can with the information that you have. Sitting on your hands and hoping that the same group of people will somehow coalesce and figure it out on their own is not a strategy, it is an absence of one.

 

[joshjull]

Adams has this summer and next season for me. After that will depend on 24-25's result. His 5-year plan will be at year 5.

Next season would be year 4 for the current front office.

We spent two years rebuilding. This season was the first where playoffs were a goal. Going with another year of internal growth and minor adds was a failure. Now Adams has to recalibrate his thinking. I hope the Mitts trade is a sign of bigger changes coming. If its not then ………

 

[Der Jaeger]

I voted to keep both.

First, I wanted to see if I was the only one, just to get the reaction. There was none, and I wasn't the only one. Oh bother.

Second, Pegula has a terrible history or replacing anyone in the organization. I'd rather try to move Adams to a VP type position and move Karmanos up to the GM. I have no appetite for another Botterill style move. And with Granato, I need to see him with better assistants. Combine this year's team with last year's power play, and this poll never happens.

Third, it's in-season and that's never a good time to ask about these things. I'd rather make a judgment in June when there's little to no emotion in the decision.

 

[Snippit]

Did Treliving evaluate in Toronto? Dubas in Pittsburgh? Trotz? No. There is no need to sit around wasting time.

we might get lucky. But a new GM isn’t gonna feel under any kind of pressure to make moves like Adams will.

 

[tsujimoto74]

I’d give Adams 1 more season with a new coach.

 

[Nikolajs Sillers]

Praying for some sick bastard who sincerely wants to keep both

4

 

[debaser66]

After how Adams managed the roster, & after the Mitts trade, I dont know what he thinks & why he did it & were he s going to be filling the hole with an already underperforming & inadequate center group.
Still think the trade was bad value.
COL needed help but Sabres had no urgency after a lost season & Mitts being a RFA.
Also Bryam was underperforming & Mitts was having a breakout season.

 

[Chainshot]

we might get lucky. But a new GM isn’t gonna feel under any kind of pressure to make moves like Adams will.

I’m not sure when in the Botterill reign this idea of taking year(s) to assess a team crept into acceptability but it is not.

 

[SabresFan26]

I voted to keep both.

First, I wanted to see if I was the only one, just to get the reaction. There was none, and I wasn't the only one. Oh bother.

Second, Pegula has a terrible history or replacing anyone in the organization. I'd rather try to move Adams to a VP type position and move Karmanos up to the GM. I have no appetite for another Botterill style move. And with Granato, I need to see him with better assistants. Combine this year's team with last year's power play, and this poll never happens.

Third, it's in-season and that's never a good time to ask about these things. I'd rather make a judgment in June when there's little to no emotion in the decision.

He turned down better assistants, which is why Peca went to the Rangers.

 

[Chainshot]

4

Only one regular, three visitors.

 

[SabresFan26]

Hire real people who are qualified.

Most of Adams young talent was from. Botterill or people that scouted when Regier was still here.

Adams has done nothing except get rid of good players for Pennie’s on the dollar. Reinhart a 50 goal scorer for Levi and a 1st? ROR got more back. Montour leaves and puts up 73 points. Jack leaves and gets a cup. He opted to keep the same team and didn’t add anything to it despite Quinn being injured. We traded our best asset for someone at a position we already had 2 #1 overall picks yet due 20 million next year. He also never got rid of Donnie. We extended him with a year left in his contract.

Wild that people advocate for him. Donnie should’ve been fired in November when the season was still salvageable.

They’re both gone and I would buyout Skinner. Canes got rid of him and made the playoffs every year since. Skinner is going to hit 1000 games without a playoff appearance. Pegulas forced Botterill to sign that awful deal and sadly if they do get new people the Pegulas are the ones making those next decisions.