Some of Jason Botterill's checklist as new Sabres GM

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 5-11-2017


The Buffalo Sabres officially announced Jason Botterill as their eighth general manager this morning. And in other news, the sun rose today and the Washington Capitals are out of the playoffs early once again.

Although it wasn't 100% definitive that Botterill had the job, only an act of God or the retirement of Pittsburgh Penguins GM Jim Rutherford seemingly could have kept Botterill out of Buffalo. Rutherford and associate manager Botterill played Batman and Robin in Pittsburgh bringing that team back to prominence after five-plus years of Caps-like playoff disappointment. Botterill was an integral part of the Penguins 2009 Stanley Cup victory under former GM Ray Shero (now with the NJ Devils) and was a big part in putting together this present Pittsburgh team that heads to the Eastern Conference Final as reigning Stanley Cup Champions.

As has been well documented, Botterill has the credentials after his steady climb upwards in the front office with a GM position about the only thing missing from his impressive resume. For a background piece on him click here.

The Buffalo Sabres have been without a GM since Tim Murray was fired on April 10, along with his head coach, Dan Bylsma. From all indications, Botterill inherits a team that has some very strong pieces up front, a weak blueline, solid goaltending and a farm system that's been depleted but is slowly being filled as numerous draft picks from the previous three drafts. He'll have decisions to make on a handful of draft picks, 20 free agents and extensions for some important players entering the last year of their contracts. He'll also be faced with some dead weight contracts that put a 26th-place team close to the cap.

And those are just the tangibles.

In addition, Botterill will need to bring together a fractured group where some were at odds with the former coach as well as with each other in the dressing room.

Welcome to the Buffalo Sabres, Jason Botterill.

There will be a press conference today at 4 pm where Botterill will be introduced and he'll be forced to use broad generalizations to specific questions, some of which may have nothing to do with him but are loaded in a way to chastise the previous regime and/or owner. And, no doubt the Sabres six-year playoff drought will be referenced as well as the Buffalo Bills 17-year playoff drought along with suffering Buffalo fans. Once presser is over he'll make his token rounds with the media where he'll do much the same and after an evening filled with interviews and eventually sleep, tomorrow will represent his first full day as the general manager of his own team.

Here are some of the things he will/should do in the near future beginning tomorrow:


Fire up the Pegula jet and head over to Europe for the IIHF World Championships

Botterill needs to visit Team USA where he'll try to convince franchise center Jack Eichel that Bylsma is now in the firmly in the past and that the new GM is accustomed to working with superstars, just ask Sidney Crosby. He'll hopefully say he's been in touch with Jack's agent and as soon as the World's are done they can start hammering out an extension.

Botterill will also have the opportunity to talk with Eichel's USA teammate, Notre Dame goalie Cal Petersen, a 2013 fifth-round pick of Buffalo's that has yet to declare his future intentions. Botterill might also want to mention that he's the new sheriff in town and will want to remind Petersen that he has no ties to present No. 1 Sabres goalie, Robin Lehner (while maybe whispering Chicago's on the decline, the Olympics are overrated and that the team he helped build is in the conference finals again.)

Then it's over to Team Canada to talk with Sabres center Ryan O'Reilly to tell him everything's cool with Jack and that he's very cool with O'Reilly but there will be no promises of who the new captain will be.

After that it's time for Team Latvia where restricted free agent Zemgus Girgensons is on a surprising Latvia team that presently sits atop Group-A. He'll also remind "The Latvian Locomotive" that Bylsma's no longer around and that if Girgensons wants to endear himself to the new GM, there will be no plastering of Eichel to the boards like he did with Sam Reinhart in the D-Camp scrimmage a few years ago.

Finally he might want to drop in on Team Russia and have a visit with defenseman Viktor Antipin, whom the Sabres are said to be ready to sign, and remind him that the defense-corps in Buffalo will get overhauled soon and that he could/should be a part of it.

On Saturday Botterill and whatever scouts he brought along can hook up with their European head scout, Anders Forsberg, and take in USA/Latvia in Germany followed by Russia/Slovakia and then off to France for Canada/Switzerland before heading back to the States.


Sunday's a chill day of time-zone adjustment, making calls and lining up coaching prospects

There will be no day of rest for Botterill on Sunday but he can chill a bit while battling jet-lag while on the phone. He needs to get on the horn to Las Vegas Knights GM George McPhee about the upcoming expansion draft. Former Sabres GM Murray supposedly had a deal in the works for the Knights to return a favor, but with him gone that deal is probably nixed.

Botterill will need to convince McPhee that he's an upstanding guy who could use a little help. The Sabres have some unruly contracts and if McPhee can take on one of them, it would be greatly appreciated with the favor being returned in the form of a draft pick and/or through future considerations.


Get the coaching search going

With the Pittsburgh still in the playoffs, the coaching search may be pushed back a little bit as one of the potential candidates rumored to be on the list is Penguins assistant coach, Rick Tocchet. Another assistant who'd be a prime candidate for Buffalo's opening is Nashville's Phil Housley. His Predators team is also still in the playoffs and there's a good possibility that they could meet the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Final.

One of the coaches he might want to start the process with is Jim Montgomery, the Denver Pioneers coach who lead that team to the 2017 NCAA Championship. Botterill may also want to pick Montgomery's brain concerning Girgensons whom he coached for one year while at Dubuque with the Fighting Saints.


All things Entry Draft need to get going next week

Botterill has an extensive scouting department to work with but one that's without two key cogs of the previous regime. The Sabres scouting department right now is headed by Assistant Director of Scouting Jerry Forton and they still have long-time Sabres scout and personnel guy, Kevin Devine to help smooth the transition.

The scouts have their reports for the upcoming draft and next week is usually when they sit down and compare notes. After that's done it's time to get ready for the NHL Combine which hits Buffalo on May 28. There will be 114 player invites to the combine and at it's conclusion there will only be a few weeks to prepare for the 2017 NHL Entry Draft in Chicago which begins June 23.


Still need to keep an eye on the expansion draft

For as important as the Entry Draft is, the Expansion Draft is just as important short-term.

Teams must submit their protected list by 5 pm June 17. Las Vegas is required to make their selections by 5 pm June 20 with the announcement of their selections the following day.


Once again, welcome aboard, Jason.

Have fun.


Here's the press release concerning Botterill's hiring from sabres.com:

"We are very happy to welcome Jason Botterill to the Buffalo Sabres family," Owner Terry Pegula said. "Jason's hockey knowledge, experience drafting and developing players, and his approach to management stood out to us during our interview process. Jason has built a solid reputation as a leader that connects strongly with players and staff around him. We are confident he will have a positive impact within our organization and will help us get to our ultimate goal."

Sabres/Rangers in Winter Classic. Botterill to Buffalo tomorrow? Plus...

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 5-10-2017


The Buffalo Sabres and NY Rangers in the 10th Anniversary NHL Winter Classic is awesome. Although it would have been even better if the Classic came back to Buffalo as the whole idea for it emanated from former Sabres president Larry Quinn, having it in the Big Apple makes for a prime-time show even if it's at Citi Field and not at Yankee Stadium, who hosted a Stadium Series game back in 2014.

Scheduling the Sabres to play in the 10th Anniversary of the NHL's preeminent outdoor event at this point in time seems to be more of an obligatory nod to Buffalo's hand in the creation of the event then a pick based upon showcasing the sport using two premier teams. The Sabres didn't exactly have the greatest of seasons in 2016-17, finishing 26th in the league, and are presently without a general manager and head coach. Buffalo has marketable players in Jack Eichel and Ryan O'Reilly, but their supporting consists of hits and misses so far.

Meanwhile the Rangers are coming off of yet another post season of disappointment as they were just ousted by the Ottawa Senators last night on home ice. Despite the loss and the fact that they're aging from the blueline back, the Rangers are always in it and there's no reason to believe they won't be back in the mix next season.

However, it's on come January 1, 2018. For Sabres fans willing to take the jaunt, those with season tickets will have the option to buy tickets for the game as it's considered a home game by the NHL schedule-makers. Why it's a home game is certainly questionable as the "home" team will be travelling close to 400 miles while the "away" team could walk to City Field, but who are we to question the wisdom of the NHL. Right?


*****

Two other second round playoff matches will end this evening as the NHL has a Game-7 doubleheader on tap. The first one, has the Pittsburgh Penguins in Washington DC to take on the Capitals while the Edmonton Oilers will be in Anaheim to take on the Ducks in the night-cap.

And for the Sabres, this could/should mean the official end to their GM search.

Penguins associate GM Jason Botterill has long been rumored as the choice but the announcement has been delayed due to Pittsburgh being in the midst of a second-round playoff match. Botterill has been credited with helping put together two Stanley Cup winners in Pittsburgh while pulling off a high-wire act on the NHL's salary cap.

With the amount of work to be done, it would behoove the Sabres to get their new GM in as quick as possible. Botterill, if hired, has the upcoming expansion draft to prepare for, followed by the NHL Entry Draft and in less that eight weeks the start of free agency. He'll have 20 free agent contracts to decide upon as well as decisions on entry-level contract for previous draft picks. In addition, three principal players will be heading into the final years of their contract. Eichel and fellow second-overall pick Sam Reinhart will be finishing up their entry-level deals while Evander Kane will be in the final year of a six-year deal he signed back in 2012 with the Winnipeg Jets. All three were top-five producers in one category or another for Buffalo last season. Plus No. 1 goalie Robin Lehner is a restricted free agent as well.

And there's this little thing about bringing in a head coach as well.

Welcome to the world of running your own team.

Botterill may end up bringing in Rick Tocchet as the Buffalo's coach, which would lighten the load a little bit. He'll still need to do interviews with other head coaching candidates and there are some young hot commodities on the market but Botterill knows Tocchet from having worked with him in Pittsburgh for nearly three years.

Whether the Sabres go in the direction of the Buffalo Bills, who now have two former Carolina Panthers as GM and head coach, remains to be seen, but Botterill, or whomever ends up being GM for the Sabres will have a pretty hectic schedule this off-season.


*****

We know Rick Tocchet was a helluva player who could both score and wreak havoc. We also know that he's respected as an assistant coach. We also know that having a checkered past, has never stopped any pro team from bringing in the person they want. Tocchet seems like a no-nonsense guy with plenty of knowledge and experience who should get the respect of his players, at least at the start.

But can he coach?

On the other side of the spectrum we have two potential first time head coaches in Phil Housley and Jim Montgomery who certainly know how to coach, at least at the lower levels, as they've won championships. Housley lead the Team USA to the gold in the 2013 World Junior Championships while Montgomery's Denver Pioneer's won the 2017 NCAA National Championship. Both have proven to have extensive knowledge and solid experience on the coaching side of the equation.

But will either get enough respect from players to allow their coaching acumen to shine through?

That's the conundrum the Sabres are in right now. With the tumult the team just went through in 2016-17 the incoming coach will not only be putting his stamp on the X's and O's aspect of the team, he'll also be juggling a diverse set of ego's that clashed in Buffalo last season. Knowing how to handle everything from alpha-male Eichel, to a reserved Reinhart and all points in between is nothing to be taken lightly. Players aren't stupid. They can smell a phony or incompetent from a mile away.

I like the idea of Tocchet in that I believe he'll get the full respect of the locker room, which may be the most important aspect of the job right now, but his stint in Tampa as their head coach was meh, at best.

Montgomery had his Denver Pioneers playing fast, aggressive hockey that overwhelmed their opponents. His style would fit perfectly in today's NHL.

I also really like what Housley has done as an assistant in Nashville with his mobile Predators. With his Hall of Fame career as a player and how he's worked his way up the ranks, I am of the opinion that he should be the front-runner for the Buffalo head coaching job.

But first things first, an announcement tomorrow as to who the new Sabres general manager will be.

On Sabres GM front-runner, Jason Botterill

Published by hockeybuzz, 5-4-2017


Perhaps the Buffalo Sabres and the Pegulas were due for a little luck and perhaps that luck, timed well with their present general managers opening, lead them to the path they're seemingly on now.

At the end of the Sabres 2016-17 season the laundry list of negatives emanating from KeyBank Center included GM Tim Murray, who'd done some good things and done some bad, but from media reports didn't have enough answers for owners Terry and Kim Pegula to move forward with. So on April 20th the Pegulas fired him along with his coach which created a GM opening for the Sabres.

The Pegulas, with Terry unabashedly stating he'd be involved the GM search unlike before, reportedly have interviewed at least seven candidates for the vacant GM position, none of them with experience as an NHL general manager. It was a curious move considering Terry Pegula had just fired a first-time NHL GM and at that presser mentioned that "experience" would be a part of the equation.

According to a source, of the candidates interviewed, the Pegulas were enamored with three--Jason Botterill and Bill Guerin, both with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Craig Conroy from the Calgary Flames. But only one so far has reportedly come back for a second interview--Botterill--and with the Pegulas beginning to head another search, this time for their open GM position with the Buffalo Bills, all roads seem to lead to Botterill as the front-runner to becoming the Sabres eighth general manager.

Amongst first-time GM's, Botterill definitely has the resume. He's a former first round pick (1994) who played until concussion issues lead to his retirement in 2005 at the age of 28. He started his post-playing career with the team that drafted him, the Dallas Stars, received his MBA in economics from the University of Michigan in 2007 and was hired as director of hockey administration by the Penguins after graduating that year. The Pens promoted him to assistant general manager less than two years later and on June 6, 2014 he was named associate GM with the club, a position he's held since.

While rising through the ranks Botterill was credited with having a strong hand in helping build GM Ray Shero's 2009 Stanley Cup-winning team and was also right-hand man for GM Jim Rutherford when the Pens won again in 2016. In addition to personnel successes, which includes bringing present Pens bench-boss Mike Sullivan into the organization, Botterill knows the in's and out's of the CBA and is considered a salary-cap guru who's mastery of the cap has allowed Pittsburgh to remain perennial Cup-contenders while annually dancing on the edges it.

It's no wonder that after the Penguins won the Cup in 2016 that Botterill was amongst the candidates being considered for the GM position of the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights. The Knights, however, went with experience and hired George McPhee a long-time hockey man whose roots in the NHL date back to 1983 as a player with the NY Rangers.

One team's loss could end up being another's gain as Buffalo may have gotten lucky when the Knights passed on a first-timer like Botterill and went with the experience of McPhee.

Simple fact is, no one knows how things will pan out for a first-time GM. We just witnessed that with Murray. But if that's the determined route a franchise is taking, hiring one that's been with two Cup-winning teams in Pittsburgh who've also remained Cup-contenders while he made key decisions, makes for a pretty strong resume.

When the Edmonton Oilers were searching for a GM back in 2012, Botterill's name was already being mentioned and Jonathan Willis of the Edmonton Journal gave us a nice outline of the Edmonton native's GM plusses and minuses. Within his short synopsis Willis noted that in addition to Botterill's known qualities as an assistant GM in Pittsburgh, "he’s also in charge of knowing the entire league – where teams are coming from, their respective salary cap situations, their internal pressures and weaknesses," as cited by a piece from Mike Colligan of The Hockey Writers.

Colligan called it "The Botterill Factor" in a 2011 multi-part series called, Penguins Blueprint, and after a quick introduction he began with the quandary facing Pittsburgh as they headed towards the 2011 trade deadline. "Botterill and Shero face a near-impossible task," wrote Colligan at the time. "In just ten days they’ll attempt to overhaul an offensive group they spent most of the season simply preparing to tweak. Almost a dozen players are missing from the Penguins lineup due to injuries and suspensions, most notably irreplaceable stars Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby."

The Penguins ended up trading for Dallas Stars forward James Neal with Shero leaning on Botterill's leg-work before pulling the trigger. “A big part of my job," Botterill told Colligan, "is giving Ray an understanding about what’s going on in the league. If he’s talking to Team X, he needs to know where they are with the [salary] cap. He needs to know if they have a player coming back from long-term injury so they’ll be looking to move a defenseman. Just making sure when he goes into these conversations with other GM’s he has a clear understanding of what their thought processes are and what their salary cap situation is.”

Cap-management and preparedness are big ones for the Sabres and so is creating a winning environment, which Botterill knows about from Pittsburgh. But the Sabres also need a GM to attract and develop talent. A new GM in Buffalo will need guide the development of the prospect pool which will (hopefully) have waves of prospects coming through the system via the 2013-16 drafts.

Time and again we've seen the Penguins bring up young players that leave us in Sabreland asking, "Where's our Connor Sheary (undrafted FA, 2014) or Jake Guentzel (2013, third round) or Bryan Rust (2010, third round)?" All of those fit right in and are having big-time success at the NHL level but were developed in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, home of the Penguins' AHL team which Botterill oversaw.

Although scouting is not his forte, Botterill directed the scouts to find players to fit the system the Penguins played. “There’s certain traits that we’ve talked a lot about and tried to emphasize with our scouts,” Botterill told Colligan in another part of his the Blueprint Series. “We look for good hockey sense. The ability to skate well. We play a system that’s fairly up-tempo, so the players need the ability to keep up with that pace of play."

But it's not limited to that. “Then we’re also looking for intangibles," he continued. "We want to see a certain compete level, on and off the ice. Are they going to get bigger and stronger? Also, our mandate here is we have to win Stanley Cups so we ask ‘Do these players have a track record at all? Have they played and been successful in big games?”

At 40 years old, Botterill knows the game well but isn't a dinosaur clinging to by-gone ways of the NHL past which is good news for those on both sides of the battle between analytics and the eye-test. He learned to use both criteria when evaluating players. "What Ray [Shero] has developed here is he wants his scouts involved with stats, but we also want input from the scouts on ‘what are your eyes seeing, what is your projection on this player?’" said Botterill, "and that’s how we go about trying to evaluate a player.

"I’m going to look deeply into the stats and try to figure out any trends that he has or how his stats compare to other players out on the market, but I’m also going to rely heavily on my coaching staff and how they see his development as a player, and also the scouts on what they see from his development standpoint and who else is out there.”

It's not hard to see why Botterill is the leading candidate for Buffalo's open GM position. He knows the game from having played it, he had the foresight to plan for life after hockey and earned an MBA which lead him to the front office and he was a big part of helping build the Penguins' Cup teams. He's well-versed in the CBA, has a grasp of players and what makes them tick and has been a part of an organization in Pittsburgh that's always close to the cap-ceiling so he knows the numbers game. He uses new tools like analytics but also relies heavily on the eye-test.

Botterill also has a championship tradition. In addition to the Pittsburgh's two Stanley Cups with him in the front office, as a player he was on three consecutive Team Canada World Junior Championship gold medal teams (1994-96) and was also a part of the Michigan Wolverine 1996 NCAA National Championship team.

He seems to be about as well-rounded a candidate as one could find.

As with Murray and a long list of other first-time GM's, no one knows for sure how it might work out in Buffalo with him in charge. It's a whole different world when you're the man. Not only is there a learning curve involved but in Buffalo's case, there's a ton of work to be done in a very short period of time. Botterill, or any other GM signing on with the Sabres, will need to use every bit of experience and every resource in his tool box just to get this team on solid footing for the upcoming season.

It's part of the reason many thought that the Sabres would look towards a GM with vast experience. Such doesn't seem to be the case and if the Pegula's wish to go the first-time GM route, Botterill seems to fit what they and the team might be looking for.





Much thanks to Mike Colligan for some outstanding work which helped immensely in putting this together. And thanks to Jonathan Willis who's short piece lead to the discovery of Colligan.

Keeping up with the Pegulas. Plus other Sabres stuff

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 5-3-2017


Although they'll never keep up with the Kardashians as a (silly) reality show and social media dynasty, the Pegula's, Terry and Kim have their own dynasty centered around land development, sports, and music that's growing bigger by the day. Recently Pegula Sports and Entertainment just announced ventures with Labatt USA and Uber, however the areas of interest for us Buffalo sports fans is the ongoing saga with their two major sports frachises--the NHL's Buffalo Sabres and the NFL's Buffalo Bills--both of which are ships without a captain at this time.

After two very disappointing seasons from both the Sabres and the Bills, the Pegulas ended up firing both of their GM's within a matter of a week-and-a-half. One, hockey GM Tim Murray, was a surprise firing not long after the Sabres season ended while Bills GM Doug Whaley was fired 10 days later after the completion of he three-day NFL Draft. Oh to have a camera rolling as Terry and Kim, along with other insiders like PSE President Russ Brandon, discussed the futures of those two and the franchises in general.

Regardless of the lack of reality show appeal, the reality for the Pegulas centers around getting their franchises out of the dregs. And there's a ton of work to do.

What's been going on with the Pegula's and their sports teams?

--The Sabres are getting closer to finding their general manager and although there's not been an official count of who they've interviewed so far, piecing things together via twitter and media reports has the total at six or more. But the big development is the Sabres reportedly bringing in Pittsburgh Penguins AGM Jason Botterill for a second interview. From what I've been told, the Pegulas were very impressed with him, fellow Penguins front office-man Bill Guerin and Calgary Flames AGM Craig Conroy during their respective interviews.

--As for the Bills GM search, things are just getting started. The Pegulas, in conjunction with head coach Sean McDermott, are said to be very interested in Carolina Panthers AGM Brandon Beane, whom McDermott worked with while in Carolina, and it's also been reported that Houston Texans director of player personnel, Brian Gaine is slated for an interview tomorrow.

--Be it known that contrary to popular belief, Sabres franchise center Jack Eichel is not involved in the search for either GM. He's busy in Germany and France playing for Team USA in the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships. Eichel was on the top line with wingers Anders Lee (NYI) and Johnny Gadreau (CGY) for USA as they had a tune-up game. Eichel scored with his a wicked-wrister 1:24 into the game. The real bullets fly beginning on Friday.

--Fellow Sabres Ryan O'Reilly is on Team Canada in the tournament. O'Reilly was playing right wing on the top line which is becoming the norm for him in international play.

--We all know the story of Evander Kane getting into some trouble last June while Buffalo was hosting the NHL Entry Draft. Kane and his attorney made a plea agreement with Buffalo City Court Judge Barbara Johnson-Lee who last fall, according to the Buffalo News, ordered an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal of the charges. Kane kept his nose clean and charges were dismissed. Now the big question. With one year left on his contract and a reported strong disliking of him by Kim Pegula (and presumably, Terry as well) where does the talented winger end up? Many (like myself) would like to see him extended at a reasonable rate and term while others can't wait for him to be moved.

--Speaking of things being moved, TBN's Mike Harrington wants the Sabres to move the eighth-overall pick in the NHL Draft. The reasoning, "Winning next year has to be an immediate priority and improving the blueline is paramount." Harrington wants the new GM to package the first-rounder to a "defense-rich" team to land an "NHL-level" defenseman. By NHL-level, I'm assuming he means at least a top-four.

--Harrington has a solid foundation for his beliefs, but perhaps it's a tad early to go for the immediacy of NHL-level help on the blueline. The Sabres have the eighth pick which should land them one of the top three defensemen in the draft. Although there aren't any marquis names in this draft, ala McDavid/Eichel, Matthews/Laine, it's a draft where an incubation period is to be expected for most prospects. Word from the draft pundits is that there are some talented  d-men in the draft that are pretty much equal but have different traits. I get the idea that patience sux for those of us in Sabreland, but perhaps we should let the new GM get a draft under his belt and get a feel for what he has before moving a first-rounder.

--UMASS commit Cale Makar, Tri-City (WHL) defenseman Juuso Valimaki and Swedish Super Elit d-man Timothy Liljegren are generally seen atop the group of d-prospects and dependent upon what those in front of the Sabres do, any or all could be there when the Sabres pick at No. 8.

--On Sunday Terry Pegula announced that not only did he fire his football GM, but also the entire Bills scouting department. With that in mind and the NHL Draft fast approaching, Sabres fans are worried about the team heading into this draft without a GM and a scouting department that might be on edge. The Buffalo News put fears to rest with an article saying that a massive overhaul of the scouting department isn't in the cards in Buffalo. As for the GM not being on board yet with the draft less than two months away, the scouting department has their lists and should be gathering soon to compare notes. And we should also not forget that Kevin Devine is still on board. Devine, a former Sabres AGM and Head Amateur Scout, has run drafts before so there shouldn't be that much to worry about in that department.

--Finally, amidst the positives coming out of PSE in the form of the Labatt and UBER joint ventures, the NHL announced that their Draft Combine will remain in Buffalo for 2019. The combine moved from Toronto to Buffalo in 2015 with the Sabres putting on quite the show downtown. HARBORCENTER with it's spaciousness and proximity to KeyBank Center plus two Marriotts right on the doorstep, makes an ideal setting for the combine, NHL reps, the media and attendees.

Of self preservation and lunch money

Published by hockeybuzz.com 5-2-2017


When I was a kid, I was the youngest in our group of neighborhood kids who were constantly outside playing sports (or doing other things) until the street lights came on and we had to come home. Being the youngest was never advantageous as it meant that I was smaller than the others I played with and against and it also meant that I was a couple of years behind on the learning curve of whatever sport we were playing.

Learning on the fly was not really fun for me. At times mistakes were made and were usually met with harsh words or something thrown at you. But you learned, and you learned how to play hard. This was the era of Pete Rose and say what you will about him, he played every game as if it was for the championship of the world (see Rose/Ray Fosse in 1970 All-Star Game.) That's how he and all of our sports hero played and that's how we were taught to play by the older kids in our group.

The only thing worse than making mistakes was slacking. Sure, not being able to cover a man or getting faked was one thing, but to not hustle? The punishment was swift and harsh--a hard smack to the head or literal kick in the ass were some of the lighter punishments doled out by the older ones. It was a time, at least in our neighborhood, were you learned not only how to play the game, but how to play it properly and when I got into organized sports, I may have had trouble with a more talented player, but I wasn't going to be outworked.

It's a different world these days in many neighborhoods. There are pockets all over the country where kids still grow up playing that way, but the participation trophy seems to be the norm. There was no such thing back then and even if it were the around, it would be nothing more than an indication that the kids proudly taking home that type of trophy were those whose lunch money was ready to be taken.

Buffalo has two major professional sports teams that are owned by one family and they just so happen to be the two toughest sports to play. Football and hockey are all about contact and separating your opponent from the ball or puck and it takes a good amount of intestinal fortitude, in addition to skill, to win. As a player it's a tough way to make a living although with the way salaries have been going up, it's a helluva good living if you can get there and have a career.

There are a lot of teams and a lot of rosters spots and a whole lot of money to be made by athletes. The first hurdle is getting on the roster and making it through the first contract healthy and on the upswing so that the next contract is even bigger. If things work out and progress continues, there's a big, lengthy contract with plenty of guaranteed money on the other end.

With that much money waiting for a player, and with so many jobs available to those whose teams have no hope of winning a championship or in some instances even making the playoffs, for some players (maybe many of them,) self-preservation is more important than winning.

Buffalo hockey fans are familiar with what it's like to watch a group of players waltz through a season (or six.) Former GM Darcy Regier's "Core," a group of very talented and very well paid players, looked marvelous when it was easy but who wilted at the least sign of pressure. That's what defined the Sabres as a team from 2007-12.

Prior to that, Buffalo had made it to the Eastern Conference Finals two consecutive seasons with "The Core" in it's infancy and with Chris Drury and Daniel Briere as co-captains. Both were the driving forces of that team and left at the start of free agency July 1, 2007.

Drury, who is now an assistant general manager for the NY Rangers saw the players on the team he'd soon be leaving for what the were and mentioned it in his last post-game interview as a Sabre. After losing to the Ottawa Senators in the 2007 playoffs he took questions with bruises from a puck hitting his face while in the crease trying to prevent a goal against. The former Calder Trophy winner and a member of the 2001 Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup winning team discouragingly stated that this Sabres team didn't know what it took to win.

Since that Eastern Conference Finals loss, the Sabres have made the playoffs twice in the last 10 years never making it past the first round with six of those seasons coming under the stewardship of owner Terry Pegula.

Throughout those "Core" years the local media reported a "country-club atmosphere" with the Sabres as they did just enough to make it interesting but never had the intestinal fortitude to get the job done it when it mattered most. Unfortunately for the Sabres, throughout this past season beat writers and media members were reporting a similar feel. In the end Pegula's hockey team finished with a very disappointing 78 points and he ended up firing his GM and his head coach.

Same went for Pegula's other professional team, the Buffalo Bills, as it got to a certain point in a game or season where it looked as if players were hitting cruise control. Whatever the case--whether it was laziness, lack of motivation or preserving oneself--Buffalo finished with a 7-9 record and the head coach was fired with one game remaining in the season.

Personally, I don't get it when a player can't go all-in all the time. It doesn't compute. Things might be different had I been born into a different neighborhood and/or a different era and had an eight-figure salary staring me in the face, but I was always taught to play hard and good things would follow. There are plenty of players in all sports who play the game the right way, however there aren't nearly enough to put each team into competitive overdrive and it puts a premium on finding as many internally motivated players as possible.

There-in lies the problem for Terry and Kim Pegula and their GM-less franchises.

I believe they want to win. However, the Pegulas are stubborn and have insisted upon doing things their way which, much to the consternation of the Buffalo sports community, includes trying to build a winning culture without the proper hierarchy in the operations department. In a matter of just over four months they fired both of their coaches and general managers and the first thing they did was put their football operations in the hands of a first-time NFL head coach. The Pegulas followed that up by hiring a public relations firm to help them deal with the fallout and as of right now their hockey department has an assistant GM at the top of the food chain.

Perhaps even more disconcerting is that the search for a hockey GM is focused upon first-time general managers without any mention of a hockey czar to oversee the hockey department. This is after they just canned another first-time GM whose free-wheeling without a operations president helped lead to his firing. It could also be assumed that their football coach, who has broad and unusual powers for a first-time head coach, will be helping to select the GM.

No doubt some of the candidates they've been interviewing for the Sabres GM position have earned the opportunity through success and quality work as well as a lengthy tenure in their present AGM positions and they may prove to be the answer. But both the Sabres and the Bills are held in very low regard right now amongst the professional communities to which they belong and doing things like the aforementioned make them look like amateurs.

I've said before that the Pegulas are on a lengthy learning curve and right now I believe they're still in way over their heads. That's why it's implausible to me that they still haven't hired qualified people to head their sports operations departments. In their six years of hockey ownership and two years at the helm of the Bills they've been flimflammed and taken by an array of snake-oil salesmen and con-artists, all of whom had self-preservation on their minds and it's kept both franchises spinning their wheels.

Maybe Bills head coach Sean McDermott is the answer and/or maybe the as yet to be named first-time GM of the Sabres will be the answer. Then again, we won't know if they're in the self-preservation business either until a couple of years down the road. If they can find the right personnel, than they could very well make it. If not, than they got themselves a pretty good ride courtesy of the Pegulas, which is something that's been happening for quite a few years under their ownership.

The GM's for both teams have a lot of work to do and that includes identifying and keeping players whose ultimate motivation lies outside of self-preservation. They need to find football players and hockey players and they also need to find coaches who can coach.  Lest we forget, not only are players looking to extend their careers and reap the financial benefits, there are many coaches and front office personnel who are looking out for No.1 too. Regier was a master at keeping his job as GM despite only two years of success since 1999 when he was GM of a team built almost exclusively by his predecessor.

One thing I'll say about former Bills GM Doug Whaley and former Sabres GM Tim Murray, both were trying to build their teams with football and hockey players, respectively. However, with both being first-time GM's they got trapped in one the pitfalls of team-building, mainly giving too much in return for the players they wanted. They were honest GM's who just didn't have the wherewithal to jump that first hurdle and they didn't have anyone above them to help them along.

Terry Pegula got his stated wish, to be more involved in the hiring of his GM's and coaches. But I'm not sure he has what it takes to wade through all the professional B.S. that's thrown around his professional sports teams.

But if that's the way he wants it, he's the owner and he can do whatever he wants. I'm just a kid from a blue collar neighborhood who never played organized sports past high school. But I will say one thing, I never got my lunch money taken.

Crazy 8's and the Pegula's clean house again.

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 4-30-2017


I’ll take full responsibility for the Buffalo Sabres drafting eighth overall in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft.

Sabres Draft Lottery representative Larry Playfair and many in Sabreland watched as the Philadelphia Flyers, who finished 10 points ahead of them standings and had only a 2.2% chance of winning the lottery, leaped high over the Sabres and 10 other teams to the No. 2 slot. In a more reasonable move for Sabres fans (if there can be such a thing for a team that has no luck when it comes to this lottery thing,) the Dallas Stars, who finished with one more point in the standings than Buffalo, hurdled five teams to land at No. 3 overall while the New Jersey Devils, with slightly better than Buffalo 8.5% chance of winning the lottery will select first overall in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft.

The Colorado Avalanche bore the brunt of the ping-pong ball madness as they will pick fourth overall after finishing with the least number of points in a season since the league returned from the year-long lockout in 2005. The second-worst team in the league, The Vancouver Canucks will pick fifth while Bill Foley saw a $500 million expansion fee for his Las Vegas Knights turn into the sixth-overall pick. The Arizona Coyotes, who may have worse luck than Buffalo will draft seventh-overall.

When I wrote about symmetry and continuity for the Sabres at this year’s draft I was thinking that a second-overall pick would be apropos for a Buffalo team that had two consecutive No. 2 picks in 2014 and 2015 and after drafting No.8 overall last season, I was hoping that a little poetic justice would come into play as the Sabres missed out on the first-overall pick two years running after finishing in last place. Unfortunately, I received my wish of with a sense of symmetry featuring the Nos. 2 and 8.

When the Sabres started the rebuilding process in the latter half of the 2011-12 season their 89 points and third-place finish in the division netted them the 12th-overall pick in the draft. A year later they drafted eighth-overall after finishing 23rd-overall while 2014 and 2015 featured two second overalls. Last year they landed in the No. 8 slot and this year because of the luck of the ping-pong balls they're back in at No. 8 for a 12, 8, 2, 2, 8, 8 draft order from 2012-17.

 

Eighth-overall in this draft isn't such a bad spot considering the organizational needs. No doubt either Nolan Patrick or Nico Hischier would be great additions to any club as both are very talented centers and considered the top-two players in the draft. And I wouldn't snub my nose at forwards Owen Tippet, Casey Mittelstadt and my personal favorite amongst the second-tier, Gabe Vilardi. The Sabres, however, have more pressing needs in the system than forward--defense.

 

No doubt a weak defense-corps was exposed this past season and as injuries hit, that position was exposed all the way down to Rochester. In his quest to bolster the forward ranks and depth, which was sub-par at best when he took over, especially at center, former GM Tim Murray's supreme focus seemed to be up front. In the last three drafts, minus the easy sells of centers Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel, both of whom were taken second-overall, Murray did not select a defenseman in the draft higher than 51st overall (Brendan Guhle, 2015.) In the 2014 draft, he selected only one defenseman out of nine selections and while he did draft five defensemen out of seven picks in 2015, after Guhle they were all fourth-round picks or lower.

 

Last year Murray waited until the third round to select a defenseman, and selected three more from the fifth round on down.

 

It's not to say that these d-men won't turn into anything. Guhle looks like a steal in the second round and has the tools to be a top-four NHL d-man. Will Borgen (2015, 92nd-overall) and Devante Stephens (2015, 122nd) look like they could be NHL defenseman with Stephens making his pro debut next season. There's also been plenty of talk about Casey Fitzgerald, (2016, 86th) and his strong development at Boston College. And I wouldn't dismiss completely players like Brady Austin or Casey Nelson, both of whom spent the bulk of there time in Rochester last season. Although they had mixed results, both players showed that they could be able to hang full-time in the NHL.

 

All of the above mentioned defensemen are at their proper developmental levels which does say a lot for how the Sabres approach player development, but the glaring weaknesses with the big club cast a pall over the organizational depth on defense. 

 

Which leads us now to a new and as of yet unnamed GM entering the 2017 NHL Draft with definitve needs system-wide on defense and a draft slot which may give them the opportunity to select one of the two or three best defensemen in the draft. From International Scouting Services the top defenseman in the draft is Timothy Liljegren whom they see as the sixth-best player in the draft. After him it's Callan Foote coming in as the ninth-best rated prospect and Juuso Valimaki ranked 11th-best. All of them are right in Buffalo's wheelhouse. Fast-rising Cale Makar may also be there when the Sabres step to the podium.

 

So you can put the blame on me for the ping-pong balls not falling the Sabres way, but also know that fate has them here and ultimately, it's what the new GM and his staff do with their picks that will determine where this team is headed in the near-mid future.

 

It's the draft and these are 18 yr. old kids. Very few make the immediate jump to the NHL and those are usually found at the top of the draft, even an NHL that keeps getting younger. Patience sucks but that's where we're at...again.

 

Hopefully next season a sign of progress will have us saying goodbye to 2's and 8's and hello to double digit draft positions once again, preferably upper-double digits.

 

 

*****

 

For posterity's sake, the Sabres have selected eighth-overall only twice--Rasmus Ristolainen, 2013 and Alexander Nylander, 2016.

 

 

*****

 

It was a bloody Sunday for Buffalo Bills GM Doug Whaley and the scouting department. After doing the work on the 2017 NFL Draft, Bills (and Sabres) owner Terry Pegula did a house cleaning today giving Whaley and the entire scouting department their walking papers less than 24 hours after the conclusion of the draft.

 

After disappointing seasons from both of his franchises, Pegula busted out the hatchet on both of his GM's a mere 10 days apart.

 

Pegula has been searching for a GM since dismissing Murray 10 days ago and he told the gathered media at today's presser that "we are close on the Sabres to having a final answer" on the Sabres GM position.

 

Nothing official has come out as of yet but some of the candidates that have been mentioned through sources are:  Jason Botterill, Bill Guerin, Michael Futa, Bill Zito, Norm MacIver and Paul Fenton.

 

Pegulas put up quite the smoke screen for Bills’ draft

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 4-28-2017


From the sound of it, Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula wasn’t travelling from campus to campus to get to know his new head coach, Sean McDermott.

With the Bills playoff drought at 17 years and counting and with a quarterback in Tyrod Taylor who may or may not be the answer, Pegula joined McDermott on the Franchise Quarterback Tour to see just what his scouts are looking for at QB.

Terry and his wife Kim, who’s technically the big dog in the Bills hierarchy, have their hands full this dual off-season for both of their franchises. They’ve put the future of their football team in the hands of McDermott, a first time head coach playing the role of “one voice” while their general manager has been relegated to figure head, and they’re also in the process of trying to fill the GM and coaching positions for their hockey team.

With Pegula joining McDermott at various campuses looking at potential franchise quarterbacks, it was assumed that the Bills were serious about finding one and may have been looking at picking one with the 10^th-overall pick in this year’s draft.

Lo and behold, they did not. The Bills apparently weren’t all that impressed with what they saw, but there was another team that was. Kansas City Chiefs head coach, and McDermott mentor, Andy Reid liked Pat Mahomes so much that he traded up from No. 27 to No. 10 to get him. The Bills received two picks in this year’s draft—Nos. 27 and 91—as well as the Chiefs first rounder in 2018.

It was a trade that worked for both teams as the Chiefs will be able to groom a very raw Mahomes for a couple of years while the Bills not only add picks in this draft, but also added a very valuable second first-rounder in a 2018 draft that’s said to be quarterback-heavy.

Perhaps when Pegula was shuffling around on T-Pegs I, what he really was doing was looking at potential GM candidates for his Sabres hockey team. Both Kim Pegula and Sabres President and Alternate Governor Russ Brandon stressed that the team is working hard on the GM search. “We’re keeping it under wraps,” said Kim Pegula to the media on Wednesday, “but definitely put a lot of work this week in, and next week.”

The Pegula’s through Pegula Sports and Entertainment, parent company to the Bills, Sabres and other enterprises, were also busy announcing other ventures that had come to fruition including a joint venture with Labatt USA and another partnership with Uber.

When it comes to the GM search, there wasn’t anything coming out of PSE but we did get some tidbits from reporters on Twitter.

Here’s how the GM search is going so far:

--One report had the Los Angeles Kings saying that the Sabres had not yet contacted them about fired two-time Cup-winning GM, Dean Lombardi

--Another said the Sabres inquired about the availablility of Phoenix Coyotes GM, John Chayka, but were rebuffed as the ‘Yotes told them the league’s youngest GM was unavailable.

--Buffalo also wanted to talk to former Sabre and current NY Rangers AGM, Chris Drury, about the position but when Drury was presented with this, the door was slammed on the idea

--The Sabres did get one interview in with Pittsburgh Penguins AGM, Bill Guerin. The two-time Cup winner as a player began his front-office career in 2011 after retiring from the game. He spent three years as player development coach for the Penguins before getting a promotion to his present position in 2014.

Still on the docket for the Sabres, supposedly, are:

--Chicago Blackhawks AGM, Norm MacIver

--Penguins Associate General Manager, Jason Botterill

--Senior VP of Hockey Ops for the Montreal Canadians, Rick Dudley

There are other names like TV analyst Pierre McGuire, Columbus Blue Jackets AGM, Bill Zito and, maybe others who’ve not come to the fore as of yet.

Not much is coming out of PSE on the search and we’re not even sure what they’re looking for. Terry Pegula said at his end of season presser that they’d be leaning towards experience while NHL insider John Shannon tweeted that the Pegula’s are looking for “new blood as opposed to veteran manger.”

Pegula and McDermott put up a pretty good smoke screen at the NFL Draft and got a haul in the process. As for the Sabres GM search, it’s pretty foggy right now.

Are the Pegula's packing their own chute on the GM seach? Plus...

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 4-26-2017


Word on the street is that the GM search (and presumably coaching search) is on for the Buffalo Sabres. Just who is running this search at this point in time is in question as they have no one in the hockey department higher than Assistant General Manager, Mark Jakubowski. From the Sabres website here's the administrative chain of command:

Terry Pegula--Owner/CEO
Kim Pegula--Owner/CEO of Pegula Sports and Entertainment (PSE)
Russ Brandon--President/Alternate Governor, Managing Partner/President of PSE

After those three is a big blank next to General Manager and a list includes a COO, six Executive VP's, on VP and a couple of Executive Assistants.

When Terry Pegula first bought the team in 2011 his inner circle included two senior advisers--Ken Sawyer and Cliff Benson--to go along with President/Alternate Governor, Ted Black. The 2015-16 Sabres media guide has Brandon listed as President/Alternate Governor after he took over for Black and has both Sawyer and Benson with entries way down the guide (page 24) under Executive Administration. Sawyer is still listed as Senior Advisor/Alternate Governor and Benson as Chief Development Officer.

With Sawyer and Benson gone, there's a huge gap in the hierarchy. One would think that Brandon would be involved in the GM search, as he is president of the club, but word out of PSE is that he's not involved in hockey decisions which would have Terry and Kim Pegula doing a tandem skydive into the world of hockey ops. Keep in mind that the duo also dove into football ops under the guidance of Brandon and selected Rex Ryan as football coach. Less that two seasons into Ryan's tenure, he was fired.

They're still scraping that PR mess of the field from that failed venture.

It looks as if the Terry and Kim Show is back on, with or without Brandon. Unless they have some secret advisor tucked away in the dark recesses of KeyBank Center.

Has anyone seen Lindy Ruff recently?


*****

The Sabres may never get out from under these words, "The Tank."

With Pegula's "rebuild" faltering after only two years and the team in limbo, there really isn't too much to talk about in Sabreland so a great fallback is the great debate on the Sabres consecutive last place finishes to draft at the top in 2014 and 2015, the year they missed out on Connor McDavid and selected Jack Eichel second overall.

It's almost a daily occurrence on twitter when a media person brings up that very sore subject. Personally I had no problem with the way the Sabres approached their future as outlined in this piece, Should the Sabres apologize, Mr. Hodge?

It was from November 10, 2014 when the hockey world, especially our neighbors to the north, were up in arms at the approach the Sabres were taking to their future. In his "Thumbs-up/Thumbs-down piece for TSN, Dave Hodge mentioned "pleas for honor" and "the integrity of the game" as Buffalo seemed wholeheartedly intent upon finishing last that season. It would be the final season a team finishing last would be guaranteed one of the first two picks in the draft and the Sabres weren't hiding their intentions.

I get what he was saying, and social media made it worse. Had Twitter and Facebook been around when Pittsburgh tanked twice for generational players, I'm sure the backlash would have been just as severe. But the NHL is not a league full of executives up for sainthood. Was Sam Pollock a saint when he dictated the rules of the expansion draft in the Original-Six era? Was Peter Pocklington a saint when he signed Wayne Gretzky to his "personal services contract?" And were there any in the offices of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment who's tanking with dignity in the 2015-16 season netted them franchise prospect Auston Matthews?

The Sabres did what they did, over and done with.

Time to move on.


*****

Long-time NFL reporter Ed Werder announced on Twitter today that he was laid off today by ESPN, who he'd been with for 17 yrs. According to ProFootball Talk, "ESPN is expected to lay off around 100 employees this week, as the network tries to reduce costs as it deals with declining revenues."

I was instantly reminded of how unceremoniously Kevin Oklobzija was let go from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle after 31 years covering the Rochester Americans.

Both provided quality work.

And just minutes ago as I was writing this piece, Scott Burnside, a member of the Professional Writers Association and 13 year veteran for ESPN was also laid off.

Dan Rosen of NHL.com had the perfect tweet, "This is devastating. I don't know of a better person in the business than Scotty. ESPN's huge loss will be another company's huge gain."

Dean Lombardi shouldn't be dismissed out of hand

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 4-24-2017


There's a lot of cringing going on in Buffalo at the thought of former Los Angeles Kings GM Dean Lombardi being considered for a spot in the Sabres front office. Lombardi built a team in LA that won the Kings their first-ever Stanley cup in 2012 and followed up two years later with another one.

The emotional rebukes of Lombardi amongst Sabres fans are running the gamut from his team-building is already archaic to his mismanagement of the Kings salary cap.

Lombardi's Cup-winning formula was anchored by strong goaltending from Jonathan Quick and a strong defense lead by perennial All-Star and Norris Trophy winner Drew Doughty. Up-front he built a heavy, Western Conference-style team predicated on puck-possession and driven by chip-and-chase. When they were on their game, you couldn't get their big bodies off you or get the puck away from them.

Lately the trend in the NHL has been towards quicker and often times smaller lineups of skilled players who hit overdrive as they fly up and down the ice. The Tampa Bay Lightning with a smaller, fast and skilled team made it to the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals using that model and the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Cup last year using that style of play. Other teams in that vein include the Calgary Flames, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets.

All of these teams have had success over the last two seasons with the Lightning and Peguins doing their thing the past two seasons and the Flames, Canadiens, Maple Leafs and Jackets making the playoffs this year after missing last season, although they were all bounced in the first round.

I'd like to think that former Sabres GM Tim Murray had the Kings on his mind when he began his tenure in January, 2014, but it looked as if he tried to alter in mid-flight as his last presser talked about speed and aggressiveness. This past season Sabres fans didn't know what style we were watching as too many factors lead to egregious inconsistencies that often left us scratching our heads. Nobody from management on down seemed to be on the same page and it's been rumored that when Murray was asked by ownership about his team, he had no answers.

That Murray was leaning Western Conference-style ala the Kings and it faltered could be reason enough for fans to be skeptical about Lombardi, the architect of those teams. However, look at how the 2017 playoffs have unfolded.

The Chicago Blackhawks won three Stanley Cups without premier goalies but had forces up front in superstars Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews as well as a future Hall-of-Famer on the back-end in Ducan Keith. Their superstar core remained in tact and they got timely goaltending and are considered a dynasty in the Cap-era. However, the Hawks got swept this year by Nashville. How did the Preds not only break Chicago's playoff dominance over them, but do so in a four-game sweep? Goaltending. Pekka "976" Rinne shut down one of the best cores in hockey allowing them only three goals while finishing with a sterling 0.70 GAA and .976 Sv%.

Why did the Pittsburgh Penguins run over the Columbus Blue Jackets? Marc-Andre Fleury was rock solid in net posting some of the best numbers of his playoff career while superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin smoked the Jackets to the tune of 11 goals and 18 points in five games. Conversely, Columbus goalie Sergei "Bob" Bobrovsky, a 2017 Vezina finalist, was terrible with a 3.88 GAA and .882 Sv%.

St. Louis goalie Jake Allen posted a .956 Sv% as the Blues got by a good regular season team in the Minnesota Wild while a Anaheim combo of John Gibson and Jonathan Bernier throttled the whiz kids from Calgary in a four-game sweep. Any kind of goaltending could have helped the Flames as Brian Elliot was worse than Bob posting the same 3.88 GAA but a slightly worse .880 Sv%.

How did the upstart Toronto Maple Leafs push an extremely talented and deep Washington Capitals team to a six-game series including five overtimes? Timely goaltending from Fredrik Andersen plus a four-game goal-streak from up-and-coming superstar Auston Matthews. The Caps overcame a torrent of flying Leafs with solid, if unspectacular goaltending from Brayden Holtby and gusty performances from its stars and superstars, of which they have quite a few.

Having playoff-caliber goaltending and/or having superstars in the lineup are strong indicators of playoff success. Good coaching doesn't hurt either. In Edmonton, the Oilers only got four points (2+2) from superstar Connor McDavid but with all the attention paid to him, others on the team were put in positions to make an impact, as in former Sabre Zack Kassian's two game-winning goals.

No matter what era you're in, goaltending and superstar power are almost always closely related to success.

The Sabres have some of that formula right now in the form of Jack Eichel and they have some complimentary pieces around him. They also have a No. 1 goalie and thank God there aren't any shootouts in the playoffs.

I get the extreme apprehension when talking about bringing in Lombardi but he does have a few pieces in place with which to build a winner. And he's proven he can build one. Is he married to a Western Conference-style of play that would make it difficult for the team to get into the playoffs? Maybe, but we don't know for sure. He was locked into those big contracts, which were his fault, no doubt, so he was locked into that style of play as well.

And before we go off on the cap-mess he's in, success is the reason he's in that situation. The Blackhawks have been in that same pickle but have managed to wiggle their way out the last couple of years, but eventually success, and the top price one must pay to keep those who lead to that success are gonna get to you in a salary cap world.

What we do know is that he seems to like to build from the goal out, which isn't such a bad idea as the more the league changes, the more it seems to stay the same, at least in the playoffs. We also know that he has one burgeoning superstar in Eichel plus a host of complimentary players that look as if they'll be able to have an impact. And maybe most important at this juncture is that the new GM in Buffalo will have a ton on his plate from the get-go, and Lombardi has the experience as well as th connections throughout the NHL well to get the job done.t

In Buffalo, we shouldn't be putting the carriage before the horse. Before you can win multiple Cups, you need to win one and before you can even think of a Cup-run, you need to get into the playoffs.
That's why I won't dismiss out of hand a GM who built a first-time Cup-winning team.

Trying to read the Pegula's tea leaves

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 4-23-2017


Perhaps it's best we not try and figure out what owner Terry Pegula was trying to say about the franchise at his 15 minute presser on Thursday, but then again, it can make for some interesting speculation. In this instance we're going to attempt to figure out the hierarchal plans he has for his hockey team, the Buffalo Sabres, and whom they might be inclined to hire as general manager.

When Pegula bought the team back in 2011 he kept on his GM, gave him a open checkbook and direct access to the big guy himself. It's been that way ever since save for a period of sanity when Pegula brought in former Sabres great and NHL Hall of Famer, Pat LaFontaine to head the hockey ops. At the time the team was going through transitional period where they were moving on from Darcy Regier and everything he built and were dead set upon a scorched earth rebuild. LaFontaine admittedly was not the GM-type so he was in charge of finding one, which turned out to be the recently fired, Tim Murray.

The plan, according to Bucky Gleason of the Buffalo News, was to have a three pronged-approach to the front office. LaFontaine, a well-liked and well-respected hockey man would head the hockey department and be the face of the front office as president. The roster and the mechanisms involved in that would fall on Murray, who would handle the personnel side of the equation from scouting to roster decisions, and a numbers-guy would work contracts and the salary cap.

It was a brilliant idea until LaFontaine reportedly had a distaste for the "rebuilding" approach favored by the organization. There may have been other things involved in his departure but his reign as President of Hockey Operations lasted all of four months, throwing that structure completely out the window.

Instead of replacing LaFontaine the Pegula's heaped the entire hockey operations on the shoulders of first-time GM Murray who was probably hired under the auspices of working the hockey aspects of the operation. We see how that turned out with Murray even saying that he wished he'd been able to scout a little more instead of being around the team day-in, day-out.

At Pegula's presser he was asked about the structure of the front office, which is devoid of any leadership right now, and he danced around the question. When a media member pressed the issue and asked Pegula if he intended to go back to the LaFontaine structure the answer was a quick and definitive "no."

Which seems about right. The Pegulas own both the Sabres and the NFL's Buffalo Bills under the umbrella of Pegula Sports and Entertainment. The only voice other than the Pegulas over both organizations is PSE President Russ Brandon who was CEO of the Bills under the late Ralph Wilson then was named President and Managing Partner of the team by the Pegulas and who also wears the hat of President and Alternate Governor for the Buffalo Sabres.

The Buffalo Bills structure the last two seasons under PSE had their GM and coach answering directly to Big Papa Pegula while Brandon continued to be involved in football related decisions. That plan was altered a bit as head coach Rex Ryan was fired and replaced by new head coach Sean McDermott who is making all the football decisions with GM Doug Whaley curiously remaining on as a figurehead. With the Bills effectively eliminating GM Whaley, McDermott is the lone voice in the new PSE "one-voice" mandate.

That's unlikely to happen with the Sabres and the Pegulas have started an ardent search for both coach and GM as they're looking to "build a stronger organization from top to bottom," according to Pegula. He mentioned that experience being important which lead us to believe that the GM position would be filled byu someone like Dean Lombardi or former Sabre Rick Dudley, both of whom have a long administrative resume.

That's what the tea leaves were reading post-presser, yet Sportsnet's John Shannon tweeted out yesterday that, "[the] Sabres have started building their list of candidates for GM. Sounds like they are looking for "new blood" as opposed to veteran manager."

Which leads us in another direction. Or maybe he does want to bring in an experienced VP of Hockey Ops to guide a newbie through his first GM position. Or maybe not.

Who the hell knows?

On the newbie front, the Sabres will have plenty of "new blood" to choose from for the GM position. The big name is Chicago AGM Norm MacIver who's been with the club for the duration of a Blackhawks dynasty that saw them win three Stanley Cups in five years.

In a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune, GM Stan Bowman was quoted as saying MacIver was "a stabilizing force" for the Hawks and much attention has been paid to his personnel skills with Bowman calling him a "co-architect" of the last two Cup-winning teams. When asked about his strengths MacIver talked about "just having a good feel for our team and ... (gauging) the pulse of the team and trying to help [Bowman] put this thing together. My biggest strength is recognizing the needs and strengths and weaknesses of our team."

MacIver seems like the type who won't rock the boat or rub ownership the wrong way. And from what I've gathered also sounds like a character-type guy which is huge buzzword ownership is throwing around right.

Based upon what they just went through with Murray, it would seem as if they'd like a little less personality and more suit. Murray was said to have rubbed Kim Pegula the wrong way and some of his moves, most notably that of the trade for noted off-ice "character" Evander Kane, probably didn't sit well with an ownership that seems to want a rigid adherence of their ideals. "New blood" certainly would allow them to mold a GM in the way they'd like.

Which probably rules out possibilities like Lombardi and Dudley, who would be coming in with their own ideals, and even a "new blood" like former Sabre Chris Drury who seems to have a self-confidence that would far surpass the Pegulas needs.

Jason Botterill is another candidate that would probably fit in with what the Pegulas are looking for. He started his management career with Pittsburgh in 2007 and is now associate GM for the Penguins. Botterill is a highly regarded up-and-comer and the Pegulas have a deep affinity for those from the Penguins organization. New Jersey AGM Tom Fitzgerald is also a candidate.

Other than MacIver, the only other button-down who seems to have the necessary experience and success to take on what the Pegulas are throwing their way (minus a VP of Hockey Ops) is Nashville Predators Assistant General Manager, Paul Fenton.

Fenton has been in his AGM position since 2006 and prior to that he was the Preds Director of Player Personnel beginning in 1998. He's a former undrafted NHL player who worked his way up from lower levels of pro hockey to a 400+ game NHL career and is highly regarded for his scouting and player development, especially on the blue line.

Back when the Edmonton Oilers were looking for a GM, Jonathan Willis of the Edmonton Journal picked a number of candidates to opine upon and here's some of what he wrote about Fenton, "While Nashville’s development record in all departments is one of the best in the league, they’ve really built a reputation for churning out NHL-calibre defensemen.  Meanwhile, the team hasn’t sacrificed winning while producing these prospects; Nashville’s AHL (Milwaukee Admirals) is one of the most consistently successful at a minor-league level.  Combine Fenton’s work in Milwaukee (as GM) with the Predators’ successes drafting and developing, and of course the team’s own ability to stay competitive with limited financial resources, and there’s good reason to think that Fenton would do well with his own franchise."

Sounds like a prime candidate, especially when defense is the weakest position in the organization.

Then again, who knows what the Pegula's will do.

No doubt Terry and Kim are well-meaning people who desperately want to bring a championship to the city of Buffalo, but what they've been finding out is that building said winner is quite different than running their previous energy business. Many are of the belief that they're in over their heads and simply winging it. It certainly looks that way with how their teams have performed the last few years and with the number of former coaches, along with a GM, whom they're paying not to be in the organization.

There will be plenty to speculate, write and opine about as the Pegulas search for their next coach and GM, which is fine. When all's said and done, we'll find out just who came closest to reading the tea leaves.

Pegula rolls solo in important press conference

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 4-21-2017


I highly doubt anyone thought earlier today that Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula would roll solo with his most important presser since buying the team six years ago. Thanks to Sabres TV we saw Pegula stand at the podium by himself answering questions about the present, future and, unfortunately, an unpleasant past.

Everyone who's ever watched a Terry Pegula presser knows how awkward he is in front of the microphone. He'd much rather be doing other things or answering questions about the positives he and Pegula Sports and Entertainment have done like HARBORCENTER and Canalside. But after firing both his general manager and head coach yesterday this was a time for him to take ownership of his team.

It was a ballsy move considering the many questions surrounding the state of an obviously flawed franchise, but in his opening statement he stood at the podium stating that "we" as an organization weren't happy with our season and, very humbly I might add, said that "accountability starts with me."

The theme of his approach going forward will start with three words that he repeated throughout, "discipline, structure and communication" a theme that Pegula and his wife Kim decided upon after meeting with former GM Tim Murray and former head coach Dan Bylsma. Later in the rather brief presser he added a fourth, "character."

After watching the Sabres play this season, and also following them in the media, it's not surprising that those three words would be the foundation moving forward. Lack of discipline on the ice reared it's head in the many times they failed to buy-in while off the ice it manifested itself in the Sam Reinhart saga when he was benched after breaking a recently installed zero-tolerance policy on tardiness late in the season. This Buffalo team was a mess with structure out the window and an obvious lack of communication between coach and players and more than likely between GM and owner.

When Pegula mentioned character, one couldn't help but think about Evander Kane's off-ice issues, said to be severely frowned upon by Kim Pegula. Another event was the Ryan O'Reilly bout with a Tim Horton's wall two summers ago. And one couldn't help but think that as owner of the NFL's Buffalo Bills the bouts with stupidity that some of his football players had must have come to the fore in the addition of character. Murray said of Kane that he had warts, and that some of the best players of all time had warts, but Pegula just busted out the Compound W.

After a rather humble opening statement Pegula was thrown into the fire by a question about Jack Eichel and how much his discontent played into the firing of Bylsma, as well as Murray. The transition from defense to offense began as he quoted Eichel's agent Peter Fish, "I don't know where those stories come from. It's ridiculous. Pegula called it a "complete fabrication" and "not a true story."

Later in the Q&A Pegula would get on the offensive again when asked if the rumors of talking to former LA Kings GM Dean Lombardi before firing Murray. "We didn't talk to anybody," he said flatly, "pure fabrication.

"Put that in the 'Jack demanded his coach be fired' category."

All-in-all not much was said about the immediate future of the franchise save for head amateur scout Jeff Crisp handling the amateur side of things with "several people" heading the pro side. Pegula said that their goal is "to build a stronger organization top to bottom" but would not reveal if he's ready to put a Hockey Ops person in between him and the GM. A hint may have come when he answered with a definitive "no" when asked about a direct link between GM and ownership with no go-between.

We haven't seen Pegula at a Sabres presser for over three years and a lot has transpired. The hiring process of both Murray and Bylsma were done with him outside of the loop and it's something he said he regretted with the results being a second season outside of the playoffs after what he termed the Sabres "rebuild."

One reporter had a different review of the rebuild pointing to fans and media alike calling it a tank. Pegula was asked about his "point on character" and if he felt the organization was damaged in that respect from that "flawed plan, a plan that authorized and essentially hoped for losing as a way of building."

"I don't want to talk about the past," began Pegula, "but a lot of teams go through rebuilds..." The reporter mentioned that it was true, but not a lot hope to lose. "Hope to lose? We don't hope to lose," responded Pegula as he brought the past to the present.

The team tanked and perhaps they're reaping what they've sown. Some will let it go, while others while carry it to the grave.

Buffalo is in a rough spot right now with no GM to guide this team through the expansion draft, NHL Draft or free agency, not to mention the glut of 20 free agent contracts to decide upon as well as an extension for Eichel and a decision on whether or not to move forward with Kane.

Pegula is taking a methodical approach, which is good. He'll have the amateur draft covered with Crisp and even possibly former head scout and assistant GM Kevin Devine. He has Mark Jakubowski as his cap-guy and an AGM who handled much of the contract negotiations and he may tap into a trusted internal guy like Kevyn Adams for some help on the pro side.

Gotta give Pegula a lot of credit for standing up there solo in a position he's not very comfortable with, but then again, he owed it to Sabreland, as this mess is his.