Last month, the Buffalo Sabres announced that Jason Botterill was being retained as the team's general manager. On Tuesday, the Sabres fired Botterill and replaced him with Kevyn Adams, who previously served as senior vice president of business administration.
According to a report from The Buffalo News, assistant general managers Steve Greeley and Randy Sexton were also fired.
"This morning, we informed Jason Botterill he will no longer be the General Manager of the Sabres," Owner Terry Pegula said in a statement. "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.
"We wish Jason and his family all the best moving forward, and we thank him for his time and energy devoted to our organization and to the City of Buffalo."
Just days after the Sabres announced that Botterill was being retained as the team's general manager, star forward Jack Eichel was very candid about his thoughts on the franchise's direction.
"Listen," Eichel said. "I'm fed up with the losing and I'm fed up and I'm frustrated. It's definitely not an easy pill to swallow."
Botterill's tenure will be remembered for several moves that never came to fruition as the team attempted to surround the likes of Eichel and Rasmus Dahlin with talent. One of the most notable moves was Botterill trading Ryan O'Reilly to the St. Louis Blues in exchange for Patrik Berglund, Vladimir Sobotka, Tage Thompson, and a pair of draft picks. O'Reilly ended up helping the Blues win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history and won the Conn Smythe Trophy for being the most valuable player during the postseason.
On the other hand, Berglund failed to report to the Sabres following the trade and had his contract terminated. Sobotka has scored only six goals during his two seasons with the Sabres and Thompson has only 12 career points.
Botterill also acquired star forward Jeff Skinner in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes. Skinner registered 63 points (40 goals, 23 assists) in his first season with the Sabres during the 2018-19 campaign and was rewarded with an eight-year, $72 million contract extension. It marked the first time that Skinner had registered a 40-goal season in his NHL career.
However, Skinner followed that spectacular campaign with only 14 goals and nine assists in a coronavirus-shortened 2019-20 season.
The former Sabres general manager did draft players like Dylan Cozens, Casey Mittelstadt, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, which are expected to help transform Buffalo into a contender. However, those players haven't reached the NHL level just yet.
The 2019-20 season marks the ninth consecutive campaign in which the Sabres have failed to make the playoffs. The Sabres finished the 2019-20 season with a 30-31-8 record, which was good for sixth place in the Atlantic Division.
The Sabres last made the playoffs during the 2010-11 season, when they lost in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals to the Philadelphia Flyers in seven games. The franchise hasn't won more than 35 games in the past nine seasons.
