The Buffalo Sabres have relieved General Manager Jason Botterill of his duties after three years in the role, per a team release. Senior Vice President of Business Administration Kevyn Adams will take over as Botterill’s permanent replacement.
The move comes as a bit of a surprise as we’re just three weeks removed from ownership announcing a plan to keep Botterill in his role. Botterill joined the Sabres as a respected hockey mind from the Penguins organization.
Sabres’ owners Terry and Kim Pegula released a statement this morning with the news, reasoning the change thusly: “This morning, we informed Jason Botterill he will no longer be the General Manager of the Sabres. This decision was made after many candid discussions with Jason during a full review of our hockey operation. We recognized we have philosophical differences regarding how best to put ourselves in a position to compete for a Stanley Cup. So, we decided to make this change.”
The statement goes on to thank Botterill for his time with the Sabres. During his three years span, Botterill signed star Jack Eichel to a long-term contract (8-years, $80MM), but the Sabres failed to finish higher than 6th in the Atlantic Division. This season, they finished 25th overall, just one spot out of the 24-team playoff. They haven’t reached the postseason since the 2010-2011 season – the longest active postseason drought in the NHL.
More changes could be afoot for the Sabres, as Botterill’s firing did not happen in a vacuum. Wholesale changes are being made to the Sabres’ hockey operations department. Assistant GM Randy Sexton as also let go by the club, per the Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun. Steve Greeley was another casualty, tweets Frank Seravalli of TSN Sports, though Seravalli thinks Greeley and Sexton should have no trouble catching on with another organization.
Letting Pilut walk away may have been the last straw. Getting absolutely nothing in return for a decent prospect really rankled my ass. If they didn’t want him a number of other teams would have been interested. At least get some draft picks or a serviceable player if you don’t think a guy fits your plans for the team.
Looking back at last week’s article announcing that Pilut had signed a KHL contract for next season, it appears Pilut had an out in his contract allowing him to sign a KHL contract if he chose to do so. Apparently he chose to and nothing the Sabres could do about it.
Nice. The Pens need another AGM. I think we only have 8 right now.
In all seriousness, I could totally see the Pens bringing him back and him being next in line behind Jimmy.
Pegula has no idea how to run a team, the failure reflects more on him than Botterill’s specific work. Example- no chance Botterill wanted to hire Housley over the guy he knew who was far more qualified in Tocchet, but fan boy Pegula wanted the former Sabre.
Agreed! Do it GMJR
Pilut is a bust anyway
When your superstar player is pi**ed off then I think it was time the ownership group had to listen… Its just like firing a coach are they going to trade top players or fire coaches or GMs…
Sabers are a dumpster fire. never give anyone enough time to succeed. The more turmoil the better, I don’t mind at all.
This was the best move getting rid of him
The Sabres have a lot of money to make “smart” moves and prevent spending money on non key pieces
“Philosophical differences“ what that means is he probably told them “when I was in Pittsburgh we spent money and we won championships“ and the owner is probably said “we don’t want to spend money but we want to win“. God help anyone who is a fan of the Buffalo Sabres The minute you get hired as an executive in that franchise you are given the shortage of leashes and they never write anything out which is why they never go anywhere
The Buffalo Hockey Bisons were better managed.