Could the Buffalo Sabres Use a Veteran of the Game in their Hockey Ops Department
TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun joined Jay Onrait on SportsCenter and was asked about the Buffalo Sabres and what they can do to change the losing around the team. LeBrun suggested why not bring in some help for Kevyn Adams or a veteran GM in the first place.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Jay Onrait: “You mentioned the Rangers, disappointing. Nashville, disappointing. You could make a pretty strong argument that Buffalo might be the most disappointing team, right? I mean, winless in 10 going into Monday. Their owner, Terry Pegula flies to Montreal to meet with the team, says the solutions in this room, and then 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, 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 is unbelievable that that would be the way they would react after the owner, does a very rare thing of meeting the players directly. You don’t see that a lot in the NHL.
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There’s so many layers to this Jay, and obviously we don’t have all night to talk about this, but this would be their 14th consecutive year out of the playoffs. It’s almost impossible to even think that in a league with so much parity, like at some point, the bounce has to go your way. And I thought a lot about this. I mean, listen, in the short term, what we know from talking to other teams as Kevyn Adams and GM is absolutely listening on almost anyone. I mean, he’s not, I don’t think he’s going to make a panic move, but if you go to him with an apples to apples, big piece for a big piece.
The Sabres are listening on that from here to March 7. But if you peel the onion back a bit more and look at this 13-14 year nightmare for the Sabres, a never-ending rebuild. The one thing that I come back to, and again, it’s not to pick 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 can’t do a good job as a first-time GM. No one’s complaining about Bill Zito in Florida. No one’s complaining about Kelly McCrimmon in Vegas. So that’s, but, he still took a pretty big chance three times in a row with someone who had not been a GM before.
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And, I hate to draw this parallel, because maybe it’s a sloppy one, but the Edmonton Oilers, remember, they were the team we used to put with Buffalo as, when are they going to come out of this? When are they going to come out of the culture change and the rebuild?
I tell you what, the hiring of Ken Holland five and a half years ago was a pretty big moment, not as big maybe as winning the lottery and drafting Connor McDavid, and drafting Leon Draisatil the year before. But if you look at where the Oilers were before Ken Holland arrived, and where they were after losing Game 7 in the Cup final when he left last summer, there is 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 more experience to help 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 lots of examples where a mentor of sorts can help a young GM, and I think that’s done a disservice in many ways to Kevyn Adams, regardless of how you feel about him as a GM.”
NHLRumors.com Note: If Ken Holland wants to keep being a GM in the NHL, this is a good situation for him. He could be the GM or the President of Hockey Operations. Another name and this is just speculation and opinion. What about Brian Burke?
Look what Burke did with Vancouver, Anaheim, and Pittsburgh. The way things ended in Pittsburgh you don’t think he wants another crack at being a GM in the NHL or President of Hockey Ops.
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