Could the Buffalo Sabres Use a Veteran of the Game of their Hockey Ops Department
TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun joined Jay Onrait on SportsCenter and was asked concerning the Buffalo Sabres and what they will do to vary the losing across the team. LeBrun suggested why not usher in some help for Kevyn Adams or a veteran GM in the primary place.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Jay Onrait: “You mentioned the Rangers, disappointing. Nashville, disappointing. You might make a fairly strong argument that Buffalo is likely to be essentially the most disappointing team, right? I mean, winless in 10 going into Monday. Their owner, Terry Pegula flies to Montreal to satisfy with the team, says the solutions on this room, after which they promptly lose to the Montreal Canadiens a day later, to make it 11 winless. Where do they go from here? Where do they go?”
Pierre LeBrun: “Every other owner, by the way in which, every other NHL owner, after seeing the 6-1 loss right after Terry Pegula met the Sabrrs made a mental note, okay, I’m never addressing our team in person. I’m never doing that. I mean, it’s unbelievable that that may be the way in which they’d react after the owner, does a really rare thing of meeting the players directly. You don’t see that quite a bit within the NHL.
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There’s so many layers to this Jay, and clearly we don’t have all night to discuss this, but this is able to be their 14th consecutive yr out of the playoffs. It’s almost unattainable to even think that in a league with a lot parity, like in some unspecified time in the future, the bounce has to go your way. And I assumed quite a bit about this. I mean, listen, within the short term, what we all know from talking to other teams as Kevyn Adams and GM is totally listening on almost anyone. I mean, he’s not, I don’t think he’s going to make a panic move, but if you happen to go to him with an apples to apples, big piece for a giant piece.
The Sabres are listening on that from here to March 7. But if you happen to peel the onion back a bit more and have a look at this 13-14 yr nightmare for the Sabres, a never-ending rebuild. The one thing that I come back to, and again, it’s not to select on these guys, but Terry Pegula, since buying the team in 2011 has hired three GMs, Tim Murray, Jason Botterill and Kevyn Adams.
And all three have one thing in common: they were first-time NHL GMs, which doesn’t mean you’ll be able to’t do a great job as a first-time GM. Nobody’s complaining about Bill Zito in Florida. Nobody’s complaining about Kelly McCrimmon in Vegas. In order that’s, but, he still took a reasonably large probability thrice in a row with someone who had not been a GM before.
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And, I hate to attract this parallel, because perhaps it’s a sloppy one, however the Edmonton Oilers, remember, they were the team we used to place with Buffalo as, when are they going to come back out of this? When are they going to come back out of the culture change and the rebuild?
I inform you what, the hiring of Ken Holland five and a half years ago was a reasonably large moment, not as big perhaps as winning the lottery and drafting Connor McDavid, and drafting Leon Draisatil the yr before. But if you happen to have a look at where the Oilers were before Ken Holland arrived, and where they were after losing Game 7 within the Cup final when he left last summer, there’s something to having experience, to getting a team like this out of this funk.
And I’m not saying Kevyn Adams shouldn’t be GM, but why haven’t they brought in additional experience to assist him? Why isn’t there a President of Hockey? Like Vancouver has Jim Rutherford helping Patrick Allvin, who’s a first-time GM. Doug Wilson is advising Kyle Dubas in Pittsburgh.
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There’s a number of examples where a mentor of sorts may also help a young GM, and I believe that’s done a disservice in some ways to Kevyn Adams, no matter how you are feeling about him as a GM.”
NHLRumors.com Note: If Ken Holland wants to maintain being a GM within the NHL, that is a great situation for him. He might be the GM or the President of Hockey Operations. One other name and that is just speculation and opinion. What about Brian Burke?
Look what Burke did with Vancouver, Anaheim, and Pittsburgh. The best way things resulted in Pittsburgh you don’t think he wants one other crack at being a GM within the NHL or President of Hockey Ops.
