Published by hockeybuzz.com, 12-2-2017
Yeah. You can put that headline to the theme of Ghostbusters.
If there's something strange, in your locker room,
Who ya gonna call? Russ Brandon!
If the team's a mess
and it don't look good,
Who ya gonna call? Russ Brandon!
Sorry if that song is stuck in your head. It could be worse. I could've used that 'Friday' song, which would be akin to tying a noose while nudging a chair your way.
Ray Parker Junior's theme song to the movie of the same name has a groove to it. It's light and playful song that's rather simple and easily lends itself to parody and/or satire. And it's the first thing that popped into my head this morning while at the keyboard.
The tire fire that is the present Buffalo Sabres hockey team may have reached the point of no return last night as they dropped a 4-0 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins. And my did they look bad in the process. They looked like an expansion team against the two-time defending Stanley Cup Champions. Maybe worse than an expansion team, at least when it comes to the Sabres. For the first time in the 47 year history of the club, they endured a third consecutive shutout and God knows, the original Buffalo Sabres expansion team from 1970-71 could probably disperse this present team with a flick of the wrist.
WWPD?
What would Punch do? It was a question posed by the late jtswineheart here on hockeybuzz back when the team was owned by B. Thomas Golisano and they were floundering with a core of players built by GM Darcy Regier and coached by Lindy Ruff. Those players were thrown into a difficult situation after upper management failed miserably in the summer of 2007 and just didn't have the wherewithal to get past a certain point.
George "Punch" Imlach, of course, is the late, great Hockey Hall of Famer who was the first coach and general manager of the Buffalo Sabres. He won four Stanley Cups as the Toronto Maple Leafs GM in the 60's before the Knox brothers brought him to Buffalo to lead their expansion team. The Sabres made it to the Stanley Cup Finals.
I'm not sure there's anything that Punch could do for the Sabres this season as this team's at an all-time low nearly a third of the way through, but God knows he'd have a much better idea of how to approach this mess than a marketing guy.
When Sabres owner Terry Pegula was introduced to us in his first presser, his emotions lead us to believe he had direct ties to that era through the Sabres first ever draft pick, Hall of Famer Gilbert Perreault. "I am a Sabres fan and have been since 1975," declared Pegula on February 22, 2011. After that statement, he was overcome by emotion when he looked in the direction of Sabres players and alum gathered to his right. "I'm going to try and not look this way," continued Pegula, visibly fighting back tears. "Because...some of the old faces...Where's Perreault?"
He looked directly at the Sabres legend and said, "You're my hero."
However, six years later, it might be Perreault holding back the tears as a franchise he was so proud to play for may be at it's lowest point ever.
Pegula did some wonderful things early on. He cut the financial chains that the previous owners had on the club. He got Rene Robert to come back into the fold and had the entire French Connection of Perreault, the late Rick Martin and Robert, together and on the ice for a skate, for the first time in decades. He put money in to the arena and tried to make it a world class facility. In addition, what he through Pegula Sports and Entertainment did in building HarborCenter on a vacant lot adjacetnt to KeyBank Center is first class.
But what has happened with his Sabres since he took over in February, 2011 has been a disaster leaving the entire franchise in a death spiral right now. Unfortunately everyone in Sabreland, nearly everything Pegula has tried to do with this club has blown up in his face.
--Keeping Regier and Ruff? Boom!
--Christian Ehrhoff and Ville Leino? Boom!
--Pat LaFontaine? Boom!
--Tanking for McDavid? Boom!
--Hiring Tim Murray and Dan Bylsma? Boom!
--Replacing them with a rookie GM and rookie coach? Boom! (at least partially)
Buffalo GM Jason Botterill is a rookie GM but he spent many years as a member of the Penguins front office and was a part of three Stanley Cups. We really shouldn't consider that a Boom! yet as at least part of his plan, reviving the Rochester Americans, is working. But bringing in a rookie head coach in Phil Housley? Let's just say that the team is 6-16-4 and just set a franchise mark for futility in being shut out three times in a row.
Housley has the potential to be a great head coach someday, but that day won't come in Buffalo as it looks like he might not even make it out of the calendar year. This team is a wreck, and although his inexperience is part of the problem, there are way too many other factors involved to lay the blame squarely on his shoulders.
This is a franchise disaster that begins at the top and what's worse for Pegula is that all of this is being filmed right now for "The Road to the Winter Classic." The Sabres will be playing the NY Rangers in the Big Apple on January 1 in the 10th Anniversary of the Winter Classic and NHL film crews began shooting this week.
Amidst all the turmoil surrounding the team, and with them just getting spanked by Pittsburgh last night, who was in the locker room having a one-on-one with franchise center Jack Eichel?
When you're all a lone
pick up the phone.
Who ya gonna call. Russ Brandon!
That's right. None other than marketing maven, Russ Brandon who, it should be known, is the Sabres President/Alternate Governor and Managing Partner/President of PSE. It's the same Russ Brandon who worked his way up with the Buffalo Bills to GM of that team despite no pro football experience in any capacity other than the business side, and was eventually named CEO of the NFL team.
Brandon started with the Bills in 1997 and, according to an article by Tim Graham of The Buffalo News last December, "has been involved in football decisions...since he became general manager in 2008. Although his official bio in the Bills' media guide suspiciously omits any reference to him being GM, the Bills' record is 58-83 (as of December 15, 2016 when I referenced the article.")
It should also be noted that the Bills have not made the playoffs this century and if it weren't for the Cleveland Browns, would be considered the worst-run franchise in the NFL.
Since Brandon replaced Sabres' Ted Black as team president in July, 2015 his hockey team took a big leap forward after coming off their tank season, but have regressed to the point where they're the second-worst team in the league two years later.
Last season's set-back and struggles had Pegula deciding clean house. He fired GM Murray and head coach Bylsma in April, 2017and who lead the search for the new GM? According to NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman, "It sounds like it's Russ Brandon, who is the President of the Buffalo Bills and the President of the Buffalo Sabres." Freidman did qualify things a bit by continuing with, "But, I think the league would have a lot of input on this one."
When he comes through your door
and wants some more.
Who ya gonna call? Russ Brandon!
Brandon is a shrewd marketer who once signed wide receiver Terrell Owens to add a circus element to his middling team. Owens was a great receiver, and still had skills when he came to Buffalo, but there wasn't much else on the team. Ryan Fitzpatrick was the quarterback and Dick Jauron was the head coach who was eventually fired after a 3-6 start to the season. Jauron was replaced by Perry Fewell who guided the team to a 4-3 finish and the Bills' third consecutive 7-9 season.
The prior year, in what would be Brandon's first as GM, the Bills came up with "The Toronto Series" where they'd play one home game in Toronto, Canada every season. The idea promoted by the team was to make the Bills more of a regional commodity, but it was a disaster for the team as they went 1-5, the fans who lost their team for a week, and the Bills image as it was seen as nothing but a money-grab.
This is the Russ Brandon whom the Pegula's hired as their President/Alternate Governor back in 2015. And this is the Russ Brandon who was in the Sabres locker room last night talking with the Sabres' franchise center.
What on earth could he offer Jack Eichel in that situation? Some popcorn?
If the Pegula's like him and what he can do on the business side, that's their prerogative, but Brandon has a definable history and you get what you deserve. Their team is in deep trouble right now and many would much rather have a Brendan Shanahan, John Davidson, Glen Sather or David Poile-type president who's roots are deep in the game and the hockey side of the equation instead of a shrewd marketer an businessman.
Marketing may fool the public, but when it comes down to it on the ice, this version of the Sabres is fooling no one.
It's a disaster and an embarrassment.
But, who ya gonna call? Russ Brandon!
Showing posts with label Russ Brandon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russ Brandon. Show all posts
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Thursday, April 27, 2017
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."
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."
Friday, January 20, 2017
Sabres loss to the Leafs should be looked at as an organizational defeat
Published by hockeybuzz.com, 1-18-2017
The headline could be, "Bylsma's team can't win the big one," as in Buffalo head coach Dan Bylsma's Buffalo Sabres dropped another big divisional game last night when it counted. Or it could've read something like "The team Tim Murray built is severely flawed despite high-stakes efforts to speed up the rebuild process." Or it could read "Eichel was yet again bottled up by another divisional foe while a superstar counterpart shines."
Simple fact is, Dan Bylsma is a good head coach, GM Tim Murray's scouting background gives him a keen eye for talent, and Eichel has what it takes to be amongst the elite in the sport. So why are the Sabres floundering? And why did a Toronto Maple Leafs team that spent only one year at the bottom of the league defeat a Sabres team last night that was supposedly two years ahead of the Leafs in the rebuilding process? It keeps coming back to how the organization is built and a tale of two ownership groups.
Bylsma and Murray are good hockey people but between the two they only have one Stanley Cup to their credit while in their present positions. Toronto head coach Mike Babcock has one Cup to his name while GM Lou Lamoriello has three and prior to coming to Toronto the two combined for 33 playoff appearances in 36 years plus another three Cup Finals' appearances with their respective teams. Babcock and Lamoriello have almost as many Cup Finals appearances as Bylsma and Murray have had years in their respective roles. Add in that Leafs team president Brendan Shanahan was a three-time Cup Champion as a player while his counterpart in Buffalo, Russ Brandon, is a marketing guy who's never tasted the playoffs in a high-ranking front office role with the Buffalo Bills and Sabres and the gulf between the two hockey operations is rather large.
Sabres' owner Terry Pegula might want to take a look at the Leafs structure and seriously reconsider his front office approach. Pegula has been asked about bringing in football and hockey czars before, but every time the question is raised he balks saying that he's fine with the present structure as is. Flying in the face of the Pegula wisdom is that every hockey team worth it's salt has a hockey guy in charge of hockey operations, yet he and those at Pegula Sports and Entertainment seem to feel that they can buck the trend and have marketing guy as team president.
It doesn't matter that the official word out of PSE is that Brandon has nothing to do with hockey ops, true or not, Brandon's title of Team President /Alternate Governor puts him in a position of power and influence and until he's replaced by a real hockey guy at the head of the hockey department, this team could very well be spinning it's wheels for a long time as evidenced by Pegula's other franchise--the Buffalo Bills. Brandon has been in the organization for every year of the team's 17-year playoff drought, the last 10 of which had him in a position of power directly under the owner. As two-time Superbowl winner Bill Parcells once famously stated, "You are what your record says you are" and the Bills record over the last 10 years with Brandon in that spot is 66-94.
Pegula had an opportunity to bring in a football czar last year but he balked again and the team went 7-9 to once again finish below .500 for the eighth time in the last 10 years with Brandon in his position.
We're not reinventing the wheel here. It's a simple truism in any business that the best owners hire the best people and it usually leads to success. Great owners know how to find (or are lucky enough to find) these men. Terry Pegula was obviously adept at doing so in the oil and gas industry as he built his East Resources company from scratch into a multi-billion dollar operation. Pegula knew the oil and gas industry and that knowledge lead to competent hires for top spots which lead to comptent hire in important positions throughout his company. Running a sports team is different than other running other organizations but at the heart of it they're all the same as it's a matter of entrusting the business to qualified, competent individuals at the top.
Trust is tough to come by, especially for someone like Pegula who has deep pockets but little knowledge of the business he sunk a fortune into. Like all multi-billion dollar industries, professional sports is filled with pariahs, incompetents and snake oil salesmen who smooth-talk their way into positions of power and influence. It happened in Toronto for years with the Leafs and in Buffalo we need to look no further that the last couple of decades. Larry Quinn was fired by one Buffalo Sabres ownership group but nuzzled his way back into the organization and eventually became managing partner of new Sabres owner Tom Golisano. Long-time Buffalo GM Darcy Regier smooth-talked his way into a lucrative extension with new owner Pegula which turned into a golden parachute. Neither are involved with professional hockey at this juncture.
And most recently, Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan not only flim-flammed his way into a five-year, $25 million contract from Pegula and Brandon, but he also had enough pizzazz to bring along his brother and 27 other assistants last year for the ride. The Ryan circus was a bombastic display worthy of the Brian Burke Award for ostentatious rhetoric and supreme snake oil salesmanship.
The gate-keeper in all of this is the owner's right-hand man or team president. Golisano's right-hand man was businessman Quinn and the Pegula's right-hand man is Brandon. Since 1999 both teams have combined for six playoff appearances, all from the Sabres. Yet, incredulously, the Pegulas refuse to hire czars to head both operations and instead are entrusting both organizations to a marketer who supposedly is giving full authority to first-time GM's Doug Whaley of the Bills and Murray of the Sabres. And it hasn't been working.
If the Pegulas ever needed an example of just how fruitless their approach is, last night provided a clear-cut example of two different paths taken by two organizations who are both coming out of a rebuild. The Leafs who've been trying for years to get it right put together an envious power structure at the top of the organization with the some of the best minds in hockey while the Sabres are trying to reinvent the wheel. Toronto is in a playoff spot seven points ahead of the Sabres with eight rookies on the roster and it's only been one season since they bottomed out. The Sabres spent two years at the bottom, last year in limbo and their on their way to a sixth consecutive season outside the playoffs.
This was supposed to be a blog about Buffalo's 4-3 loss last night and how the Sabres once again blew a two-goal lead against a team they were chasing in the division. It was supposed to be about how they're 0-4 when it truly mattered recently with a coach who can't seem to get this team moving in the same direction for any pronounced length of time. It was supposed to be about a GM who's hand-picked goalie got pulled in the second period after stopping only 13 of 16 shots and looks anything but a franchise-type goalie. And it was supposed to be about a star player in Buffalo who once again was outshone by his contemporary.
However, it just kept coming back to organizational structure and how hubris seems to be blocking the synapses of ownership's collective head. You can eventually overcome players, coaches and gm's who aren't up to snuff, but you cannot overcome ineptitude by ownership or high-ranking front office personnel. Sure, the Sabres or Bills may buck the trend and win a championship with a marketer in charge, but history has shown that it doesn't really work that way.
If it all comes to fruition for Pegula and the Sabres (or Bills) are able to reach the promised land with this front office as constructed, this piece will constitute nothing more than senseless drivel from a two-bit blogger. But as the old saying goes, "it starts at the top," and those at the top in Buffalo have teams that are middle of the road while young teams like the Leafs are blowing past them. Until some definitive changes are made they'll amble along saying, "we know better," while the Bills/Sabres playoff drought hits 23 years and counting between the two.
That constitutes organizational failure and it's wrong to place the weight of the blame on coaches, GM's or players.
The headline could be, "Bylsma's team can't win the big one," as in Buffalo head coach Dan Bylsma's Buffalo Sabres dropped another big divisional game last night when it counted. Or it could've read something like "The team Tim Murray built is severely flawed despite high-stakes efforts to speed up the rebuild process." Or it could read "Eichel was yet again bottled up by another divisional foe while a superstar counterpart shines."
Simple fact is, Dan Bylsma is a good head coach, GM Tim Murray's scouting background gives him a keen eye for talent, and Eichel has what it takes to be amongst the elite in the sport. So why are the Sabres floundering? And why did a Toronto Maple Leafs team that spent only one year at the bottom of the league defeat a Sabres team last night that was supposedly two years ahead of the Leafs in the rebuilding process? It keeps coming back to how the organization is built and a tale of two ownership groups.
Bylsma and Murray are good hockey people but between the two they only have one Stanley Cup to their credit while in their present positions. Toronto head coach Mike Babcock has one Cup to his name while GM Lou Lamoriello has three and prior to coming to Toronto the two combined for 33 playoff appearances in 36 years plus another three Cup Finals' appearances with their respective teams. Babcock and Lamoriello have almost as many Cup Finals appearances as Bylsma and Murray have had years in their respective roles. Add in that Leafs team president Brendan Shanahan was a three-time Cup Champion as a player while his counterpart in Buffalo, Russ Brandon, is a marketing guy who's never tasted the playoffs in a high-ranking front office role with the Buffalo Bills and Sabres and the gulf between the two hockey operations is rather large.
Sabres' owner Terry Pegula might want to take a look at the Leafs structure and seriously reconsider his front office approach. Pegula has been asked about bringing in football and hockey czars before, but every time the question is raised he balks saying that he's fine with the present structure as is. Flying in the face of the Pegula wisdom is that every hockey team worth it's salt has a hockey guy in charge of hockey operations, yet he and those at Pegula Sports and Entertainment seem to feel that they can buck the trend and have marketing guy as team president.
It doesn't matter that the official word out of PSE is that Brandon has nothing to do with hockey ops, true or not, Brandon's title of Team President /Alternate Governor puts him in a position of power and influence and until he's replaced by a real hockey guy at the head of the hockey department, this team could very well be spinning it's wheels for a long time as evidenced by Pegula's other franchise--the Buffalo Bills. Brandon has been in the organization for every year of the team's 17-year playoff drought, the last 10 of which had him in a position of power directly under the owner. As two-time Superbowl winner Bill Parcells once famously stated, "You are what your record says you are" and the Bills record over the last 10 years with Brandon in that spot is 66-94.
Pegula had an opportunity to bring in a football czar last year but he balked again and the team went 7-9 to once again finish below .500 for the eighth time in the last 10 years with Brandon in his position.
We're not reinventing the wheel here. It's a simple truism in any business that the best owners hire the best people and it usually leads to success. Great owners know how to find (or are lucky enough to find) these men. Terry Pegula was obviously adept at doing so in the oil and gas industry as he built his East Resources company from scratch into a multi-billion dollar operation. Pegula knew the oil and gas industry and that knowledge lead to competent hires for top spots which lead to comptent hire in important positions throughout his company. Running a sports team is different than other running other organizations but at the heart of it they're all the same as it's a matter of entrusting the business to qualified, competent individuals at the top.
Trust is tough to come by, especially for someone like Pegula who has deep pockets but little knowledge of the business he sunk a fortune into. Like all multi-billion dollar industries, professional sports is filled with pariahs, incompetents and snake oil salesmen who smooth-talk their way into positions of power and influence. It happened in Toronto for years with the Leafs and in Buffalo we need to look no further that the last couple of decades. Larry Quinn was fired by one Buffalo Sabres ownership group but nuzzled his way back into the organization and eventually became managing partner of new Sabres owner Tom Golisano. Long-time Buffalo GM Darcy Regier smooth-talked his way into a lucrative extension with new owner Pegula which turned into a golden parachute. Neither are involved with professional hockey at this juncture.
And most recently, Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan not only flim-flammed his way into a five-year, $25 million contract from Pegula and Brandon, but he also had enough pizzazz to bring along his brother and 27 other assistants last year for the ride. The Ryan circus was a bombastic display worthy of the Brian Burke Award for ostentatious rhetoric and supreme snake oil salesmanship.
The gate-keeper in all of this is the owner's right-hand man or team president. Golisano's right-hand man was businessman Quinn and the Pegula's right-hand man is Brandon. Since 1999 both teams have combined for six playoff appearances, all from the Sabres. Yet, incredulously, the Pegulas refuse to hire czars to head both operations and instead are entrusting both organizations to a marketer who supposedly is giving full authority to first-time GM's Doug Whaley of the Bills and Murray of the Sabres. And it hasn't been working.
If the Pegulas ever needed an example of just how fruitless their approach is, last night provided a clear-cut example of two different paths taken by two organizations who are both coming out of a rebuild. The Leafs who've been trying for years to get it right put together an envious power structure at the top of the organization with the some of the best minds in hockey while the Sabres are trying to reinvent the wheel. Toronto is in a playoff spot seven points ahead of the Sabres with eight rookies on the roster and it's only been one season since they bottomed out. The Sabres spent two years at the bottom, last year in limbo and their on their way to a sixth consecutive season outside the playoffs.
This was supposed to be a blog about Buffalo's 4-3 loss last night and how the Sabres once again blew a two-goal lead against a team they were chasing in the division. It was supposed to be about how they're 0-4 when it truly mattered recently with a coach who can't seem to get this team moving in the same direction for any pronounced length of time. It was supposed to be about a GM who's hand-picked goalie got pulled in the second period after stopping only 13 of 16 shots and looks anything but a franchise-type goalie. And it was supposed to be about a star player in Buffalo who once again was outshone by his contemporary.
However, it just kept coming back to organizational structure and how hubris seems to be blocking the synapses of ownership's collective head. You can eventually overcome players, coaches and gm's who aren't up to snuff, but you cannot overcome ineptitude by ownership or high-ranking front office personnel. Sure, the Sabres or Bills may buck the trend and win a championship with a marketer in charge, but history has shown that it doesn't really work that way.
If it all comes to fruition for Pegula and the Sabres (or Bills) are able to reach the promised land with this front office as constructed, this piece will constitute nothing more than senseless drivel from a two-bit blogger. But as the old saying goes, "it starts at the top," and those at the top in Buffalo have teams that are middle of the road while young teams like the Leafs are blowing past them. Until some definitive changes are made they'll amble along saying, "we know better," while the Bills/Sabres playoff drought hits 23 years and counting between the two.
That constitutes organizational failure and it's wrong to place the weight of the blame on coaches, GM's or players.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Dear Uncle Terry, please keep Russ Brandon away from hockey ops
Buffalo Bills fans are having yet another Groundhog Day Monday morning today. It's December, their beloved football team is effectively out of the playoffs and their hitting the various draft sites seeing who the Bills should pick with yet another middle-round draft pick. It's like clockwork. The season begins with hope, somewhere within the first handful of games a Jekyll and Hyde Bills team shows extreme promise and laughable ineptitude, things fall apart, they're "In the hunt" for a playoff spot in November and then the inevitable hits.
It's been going on for 17 years.
At the conclusion of this season, probably as soon as next week, the Buffalo Bills for the 17th consecutive season will miss the playoffs. It's the longest playoff drought in the four major North American sport.
The Bills have tried everything since 1999 to try and get it right. They're on their sixth GM, eighth head coach and have had a total of 16 quarterbacks play in a game since they last made the playoffs. They've tried it all and nothing has worked and throughout it all there have been only two constants--nearly unwavering support from Bills Nation, and Team President Russ Brandon.
"Russ Brandon, the team's managing partner and president, has been with the Bills 20 years and has been involved in football decisions the past nine years," writes Tim Graham of the Buffalo News this morning. "Since he became general manager in 2008, although his official bio in the Bills' media guide suspiciously omits any reference to him being GM, the Bills' record is 58-83."
Brandon "was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Buffalo Bills on January 8, 2008 with the responsibility of overseeing the day-to-day operations of the organization, which includes Football and Business Operations" according to Buffalo Bills.com. Although he hired Buddy Nix as GM in 2010 then promoted the Bills present GM Doug Whaley to that spot in 2013. According to Graham "Brandon supposedly stopped having input on 'football decisions' after [Kim and Terry] Pegula bought the Bills. There are, however, myriad references to the contrary."
Graham quotes Terry Pegula as saying Brandon advised after interviewing Rex Ryan for the head coaching spot, "Don't let him out of the building," points to a Sports Illustrated story where Brandon gave Ryan tips on schmoozing Pegula and also states that Brandon is in on every Monday morning football call.
Since Brandon took the reigns in 2008 the Bills have finished with a record above .500 once at 9-7 and only because the New England Patriots were resting in the final game of the season to prepare for an eventual Super Bowl run.
Yet on July 27, 2015 Pegula Sports and Entertainment, the umbrella organization for the Pegulas, named Brandon Team President and Alternate Governor of the Buffalo Sabres. The statement from the Pegulas read like this:
"Since we purchased the Buffalo Bills last October, we have been highly impressed with the business acumen that Russ has shown with the Bills.
"Now is an appropriate time to give him additional responsibilities with the Sabres. Russ will work with Pegula Sports & Entertainment to create strong synergies between the Sabres and Bills. With Russ' strong ties to the area business community and sponsorship partners, he will effectively position both organizations for future growth."
Brandon's business acumen with the Bills rivals that of baseball's Chicago Cubs who filled the stands annually despite being the most lovable losers of the four major North American sports. For years Brandon worked his business magic selling hope at the beginning of the season and a promise of a better future at the end to keep Buffalo's Orchard Park stadium filled. And that's all well and good from the business side of the equation but his average at best track record as the head of the football department reveals a glaring hole in the football operations.
NFL owners have a veritable ATM when it comes to their team. Revenue streams are such that spending to the cap ceiling won't even come close to putting a team in the red. It's pretty easy to throw money around but the difficult parts are finding the right players to pay big money to and finding the right GM and coaches to get the most out of the team. Brandon has proven incapable of getting the football operations past mediocrity.
The NHL is a much different game. Outside of the big television markets, much of team's revenue comes from ticket sales and merchandising (although a recent 10-year, $2 billion television contract.) The Sabres and their fans have witnessed the small-market conundrum for years.
From 2003, when the league was running the team until 2011 when Terry Pegula bought them, the Sabres had only two seasons where they could hang with the big boys on an leveled playing field. After the 2004-05 lockout the NHL imposed a salary cap and brought about revenue sharing that allowed teams like the Buffalo to make a competitive run. Three of the final four teams that first season were the small-market Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes and Edmonton Oilers. The fourth Anaheim, a team in a big market with little attention paid to them.
The NHL's salary cap kept things in check for the 2006-07 season but after that the big boys started taking over again as the salary cap increased. The owner at the time was Tom Golisano (along with managing partner Larry Quinn) and he was said to be ready to sell as early as 2007. From 2007 to 2011 the Sabres were on a strict budget with the mandate of "just break even" as Golisano looked for an owner that would keep the team in Buffalo. Mediocrity followed as the Sabres made the playoffs twice in four seasons but were bounced in the first round both times.
February 2011 brought about ownership change as Pegula bought the team. The presser was full of warm feelings and a sense of relief. Pegula teared up at the sight of his hockey hero, Sabres legend Gilbert Perreault, then famously stated what everyone in Sabreland wanted to hear, "Starting today, there will be no financial mandates on the Buffalo Sabres hockey department." There was one goal that the billionaire had for his team, "Starting today," Pegula said, "the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence will be to win a Stanley Cup."
Cost was not an issue for the founder of an energy company he sold for over $4 billion. "If I want to make some money, I'll go drill a gas well."
He proved that by going on a drunken sailor, free agent frenzy in the summer of 2011, but when it all went south Pegula and his charges went with a scorched-earth rebuild plan culminating with consecutive last place finishes and consecutive second-overall picks due to the NHL's Draft Lottery. The architect of that rebuild was team president Ted Black, the man Brandon replaced.
The Sabres are into year-two of the build portion of the program and they're struggling because of a rash of injuries. Franchise cornerstone Jack Eichel missed the first 21 games of the season due to injury and other key components like forwards Ryan O'Reilly and Evander Kane also missed chunks of time due to injury. On the back-end the Sabres were elected to call up junior player Brendan Guhle on an emergency basis due injuries on the back end to Zach Bogosian, Dmitiry Kulikov, Josh Gorges and previous call-up Taylor Fedun.
Buffalo managed to stay afloat going 10-11-6 but they still find themselves at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, last in the Eastern Conference and 27th in the league with team butting up against the salary cap. It put management in a difficult situation.
Throughout the injuries the Sabres were calling players up and sending them down as quickly as possible to save what pennies they could on cap-space. According to CapFriendly the Sabres have only $1.7 million in cap-space right now making things really tight. However, they could have gotten $1.5 million in cap relief by placing Cody McCormick on long-term injured reserve. McCormick has been dealing with blood clots and wasn't expected to play this season at all.
That would be a February, 2011 Pegula-driven move. Instead of giving his hockey department $1.5 million to add to the salary cap, he had his management team yo-yoing players between the Rochester Americans and Buffalo on an almost daily basis to save money.
It's a practice that has compromised both clubs.
As the Sabres pull talent from Rochester, their AHL affiliate takes the hit. The Amerks right now are 9-15-0-1 after coming off of a 1-3-0-0 road trip where their goalies were pummeled by the opposition.
And here's the rub.
While the Sabres are pulling talent from Rochester, the Amerks are left to sign players to tryout contracts and maybe an AHL contract or two. Teams are allowed 50 professional contracts to fill their NHL and AHL rosters. According to CapFriendly the Buffalo Sabres have 43. Most times teams leave themselves some wiggle room at 48 or so meaning the Sabres have five openings but have yet to fill them.
"There's no NHL salary cap on scouting budgets and player development budgets," is another line from Pegula's presser and to his word, he's done that. But in a difficult year when adding only one NHL-level defenseman could have helped both Buffalo and Rochester, management stood pat. Why?
The prevailing reason is the salary cap yet as we've seen from a team like the Philadelphia Flyers, you can walk a tightrope if there's a commitment to do so.
The Flyers always seem to be against the cap and they always seem to find a way around it, most notably through LTIR. Their an organization willing to spend whatever it takes to ice the best hockey team they can year-in, year-out no matter what the circumstances.
That commitment doesn't seem to be there right now in Buffalo and questions should be raised as to where the weak link is on that chain. As far as we know, the Sabres are Terry Pegula's baby and if his words from the first presser ring true, he'll spend what's necessary and there's no reason to think otherwise, especially the virtual ATM they have with the Bills to balance things out.
We also know that GM Tim Murray isn't afraid to pull the trigger on a trade to try and improve his club. He and AGM Mark Jakubowski haven't been shy about dishing out contracts, with many of them as of late being very solid, team-friendly ones.
The man between Pegula and Murray is Russ Brandon.
Not being inside KeyBank Center it's hard to know just much say Brandon has in the hockey operations department and hopefully, based upon his recent record with the Bills, it won't be much.
It looks as if the Buffalo Bills will miss the playoffs for the 17th consecutive season with Russ Brandon at the helm for nine of those. It seems pretty obvious that his business acumen hasn't transferred to the operations side of the equation and maybe the Pegulas should consider hiring a respected football guy like Bill Polian or Tom Coughlin to take over for him.
As for the Sabres, they need to nip this in the bud before it reaches Bills-level ineptitiude by keeping Brandon out of the hockey operations. If it takes hiring a vice president of hockey operations to be the go-between, so be it, because according to Terry Pegula, money is no object and in the end, etched in the Sabres dressing room is this quote from him:
"From this point forward, the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence will be to win the Stanley Cup."
It's been going on for 17 years.
At the conclusion of this season, probably as soon as next week, the Buffalo Bills for the 17th consecutive season will miss the playoffs. It's the longest playoff drought in the four major North American sport.
The Bills have tried everything since 1999 to try and get it right. They're on their sixth GM, eighth head coach and have had a total of 16 quarterbacks play in a game since they last made the playoffs. They've tried it all and nothing has worked and throughout it all there have been only two constants--nearly unwavering support from Bills Nation, and Team President Russ Brandon.
"Russ Brandon, the team's managing partner and president, has been with the Bills 20 years and has been involved in football decisions the past nine years," writes Tim Graham of the Buffalo News this morning. "Since he became general manager in 2008, although his official bio in the Bills' media guide suspiciously omits any reference to him being GM, the Bills' record is 58-83."
Brandon "was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Buffalo Bills on January 8, 2008 with the responsibility of overseeing the day-to-day operations of the organization, which includes Football and Business Operations" according to Buffalo Bills.com. Although he hired Buddy Nix as GM in 2010 then promoted the Bills present GM Doug Whaley to that spot in 2013. According to Graham "Brandon supposedly stopped having input on 'football decisions' after [Kim and Terry] Pegula bought the Bills. There are, however, myriad references to the contrary."
Graham quotes Terry Pegula as saying Brandon advised after interviewing Rex Ryan for the head coaching spot, "Don't let him out of the building," points to a Sports Illustrated story where Brandon gave Ryan tips on schmoozing Pegula and also states that Brandon is in on every Monday morning football call.
Since Brandon took the reigns in 2008 the Bills have finished with a record above .500 once at 9-7 and only because the New England Patriots were resting in the final game of the season to prepare for an eventual Super Bowl run.
Yet on July 27, 2015 Pegula Sports and Entertainment, the umbrella organization for the Pegulas, named Brandon Team President and Alternate Governor of the Buffalo Sabres. The statement from the Pegulas read like this:
"Since we purchased the Buffalo Bills last October, we have been highly impressed with the business acumen that Russ has shown with the Bills.
"Now is an appropriate time to give him additional responsibilities with the Sabres. Russ will work with Pegula Sports & Entertainment to create strong synergies between the Sabres and Bills. With Russ' strong ties to the area business community and sponsorship partners, he will effectively position both organizations for future growth."
Brandon's business acumen with the Bills rivals that of baseball's Chicago Cubs who filled the stands annually despite being the most lovable losers of the four major North American sports. For years Brandon worked his business magic selling hope at the beginning of the season and a promise of a better future at the end to keep Buffalo's Orchard Park stadium filled. And that's all well and good from the business side of the equation but his average at best track record as the head of the football department reveals a glaring hole in the football operations.
NFL owners have a veritable ATM when it comes to their team. Revenue streams are such that spending to the cap ceiling won't even come close to putting a team in the red. It's pretty easy to throw money around but the difficult parts are finding the right players to pay big money to and finding the right GM and coaches to get the most out of the team. Brandon has proven incapable of getting the football operations past mediocrity.
The NHL is a much different game. Outside of the big television markets, much of team's revenue comes from ticket sales and merchandising (although a recent 10-year, $2 billion television contract.) The Sabres and their fans have witnessed the small-market conundrum for years.
From 2003, when the league was running the team until 2011 when Terry Pegula bought them, the Sabres had only two seasons where they could hang with the big boys on an leveled playing field. After the 2004-05 lockout the NHL imposed a salary cap and brought about revenue sharing that allowed teams like the Buffalo to make a competitive run. Three of the final four teams that first season were the small-market Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes and Edmonton Oilers. The fourth Anaheim, a team in a big market with little attention paid to them.
The NHL's salary cap kept things in check for the 2006-07 season but after that the big boys started taking over again as the salary cap increased. The owner at the time was Tom Golisano (along with managing partner Larry Quinn) and he was said to be ready to sell as early as 2007. From 2007 to 2011 the Sabres were on a strict budget with the mandate of "just break even" as Golisano looked for an owner that would keep the team in Buffalo. Mediocrity followed as the Sabres made the playoffs twice in four seasons but were bounced in the first round both times.
February 2011 brought about ownership change as Pegula bought the team. The presser was full of warm feelings and a sense of relief. Pegula teared up at the sight of his hockey hero, Sabres legend Gilbert Perreault, then famously stated what everyone in Sabreland wanted to hear, "Starting today, there will be no financial mandates on the Buffalo Sabres hockey department." There was one goal that the billionaire had for his team, "Starting today," Pegula said, "the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence will be to win a Stanley Cup."
Cost was not an issue for the founder of an energy company he sold for over $4 billion. "If I want to make some money, I'll go drill a gas well."
He proved that by going on a drunken sailor, free agent frenzy in the summer of 2011, but when it all went south Pegula and his charges went with a scorched-earth rebuild plan culminating with consecutive last place finishes and consecutive second-overall picks due to the NHL's Draft Lottery. The architect of that rebuild was team president Ted Black, the man Brandon replaced.
The Sabres are into year-two of the build portion of the program and they're struggling because of a rash of injuries. Franchise cornerstone Jack Eichel missed the first 21 games of the season due to injury and other key components like forwards Ryan O'Reilly and Evander Kane also missed chunks of time due to injury. On the back-end the Sabres were elected to call up junior player Brendan Guhle on an emergency basis due injuries on the back end to Zach Bogosian, Dmitiry Kulikov, Josh Gorges and previous call-up Taylor Fedun.
Buffalo managed to stay afloat going 10-11-6 but they still find themselves at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, last in the Eastern Conference and 27th in the league with team butting up against the salary cap. It put management in a difficult situation.
Throughout the injuries the Sabres were calling players up and sending them down as quickly as possible to save what pennies they could on cap-space. According to CapFriendly the Sabres have only $1.7 million in cap-space right now making things really tight. However, they could have gotten $1.5 million in cap relief by placing Cody McCormick on long-term injured reserve. McCormick has been dealing with blood clots and wasn't expected to play this season at all.
That would be a February, 2011 Pegula-driven move. Instead of giving his hockey department $1.5 million to add to the salary cap, he had his management team yo-yoing players between the Rochester Americans and Buffalo on an almost daily basis to save money.
It's a practice that has compromised both clubs.
As the Sabres pull talent from Rochester, their AHL affiliate takes the hit. The Amerks right now are 9-15-0-1 after coming off of a 1-3-0-0 road trip where their goalies were pummeled by the opposition.
And here's the rub.
While the Sabres are pulling talent from Rochester, the Amerks are left to sign players to tryout contracts and maybe an AHL contract or two. Teams are allowed 50 professional contracts to fill their NHL and AHL rosters. According to CapFriendly the Buffalo Sabres have 43. Most times teams leave themselves some wiggle room at 48 or so meaning the Sabres have five openings but have yet to fill them.
"There's no NHL salary cap on scouting budgets and player development budgets," is another line from Pegula's presser and to his word, he's done that. But in a difficult year when adding only one NHL-level defenseman could have helped both Buffalo and Rochester, management stood pat. Why?
The prevailing reason is the salary cap yet as we've seen from a team like the Philadelphia Flyers, you can walk a tightrope if there's a commitment to do so.
The Flyers always seem to be against the cap and they always seem to find a way around it, most notably through LTIR. Their an organization willing to spend whatever it takes to ice the best hockey team they can year-in, year-out no matter what the circumstances.
That commitment doesn't seem to be there right now in Buffalo and questions should be raised as to where the weak link is on that chain. As far as we know, the Sabres are Terry Pegula's baby and if his words from the first presser ring true, he'll spend what's necessary and there's no reason to think otherwise, especially the virtual ATM they have with the Bills to balance things out.
We also know that GM Tim Murray isn't afraid to pull the trigger on a trade to try and improve his club. He and AGM Mark Jakubowski haven't been shy about dishing out contracts, with many of them as of late being very solid, team-friendly ones.
The man between Pegula and Murray is Russ Brandon.
Not being inside KeyBank Center it's hard to know just much say Brandon has in the hockey operations department and hopefully, based upon his recent record with the Bills, it won't be much.
It looks as if the Buffalo Bills will miss the playoffs for the 17th consecutive season with Russ Brandon at the helm for nine of those. It seems pretty obvious that his business acumen hasn't transferred to the operations side of the equation and maybe the Pegulas should consider hiring a respected football guy like Bill Polian or Tom Coughlin to take over for him.
As for the Sabres, they need to nip this in the bud before it reaches Bills-level ineptitiude by keeping Brandon out of the hockey operations. If it takes hiring a vice president of hockey operations to be the go-between, so be it, because according to Terry Pegula, money is no object and in the end, etched in the Sabres dressing room is this quote from him:
"From this point forward, the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence will be to win the Stanley Cup."
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Russ Brandon ready to work some magic with the Sabres Hockey Dept.
Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com
Let's get this out of the way right now, just named President of the Buffalo Sabres, Russ Brandon, is not a sports personnel guy. Nor is he a scout or GM or coach. Nor is he in charge of operations on the football field or on the ice for Pegula Sports and Entertainment. Brandon is a marketing guy and that will be his supreme focus.
His outstanding work as President of the Buffalo Bills caught the attention of Terry and Kim Pegula, owners of both the Sabres and the Bills and they felt that Brandon should be the guy to head both franchises. "Since we purchased the Buffalo Bills last October, we have been highly impressed with the business acumen that Russ has shown with the Bills," the Pegulas said via a press release. "Now is an appropriate time to give him additional responsibilities with the Sabres. Russ will work with Pegula Sports & Entertainment to create strong synergies between the Sabres and Bills. With Russ' strong ties to the area business community and sponsorship partners, he will effectively position both organizations for future growth."
Let's get this out of the way right now, just named President of the Buffalo Sabres, Russ Brandon, is not a sports personnel guy. Nor is he a scout or GM or coach. Nor is he in charge of operations on the football field or on the ice for Pegula Sports and Entertainment. Brandon is a marketing guy and that will be his supreme focus.
His outstanding work as President of the Buffalo Bills caught the attention of Terry and Kim Pegula, owners of both the Sabres and the Bills and they felt that Brandon should be the guy to head both franchises. "Since we purchased the Buffalo Bills last October, we have been highly impressed with the business acumen that Russ has shown with the Bills," the Pegulas said via a press release. "Now is an appropriate time to give him additional responsibilities with the Sabres. Russ will work with Pegula Sports & Entertainment to create strong synergies between the Sabres and Bills. With Russ' strong ties to the area business community and sponsorship partners, he will effectively position both organizations for future growth."
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