“Right now, as you can tell, I'm still the team president,” she told reporters as part of a roughly 15-minute question and answer session with the Buffalo media who made the trip to Arizona. “When we bought the team we kind of took on a lot of things that had been going on for many years. It takes a while to just understand the organization and people behind it and how we want things to be done, how we want things to be structured. Once Russ [Brandon> departed earlier last year and I became president, it allowed me to get a little deeper into the organization. It's a matter of wanting to put our own stamp on the organization. How we want things to be structured and run.”
Brandon, president of both the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres, resigned in May of 2018. In January, Sabres senior vice president of administration and general manager of HarborCenter Michael Gilbert resigned, along with Buffalo Beauts general manager Nik Fattey, who also served as vice president and director of hockey at HarborCenter.
Just a month ago, Chief Operating Officer Bruce Popko was let go, along with Brent Rossi, who served as PSE executive vice president and chief administrative officer for the Sabres. Executive vice president of business development Erica Muhleman was also let go as part of that shakeup.
“I don't think it was culture,” Pegula said. “It wasn't just one thing, it was it was a lot of different things. Some of it was just based on whether it was work-related, whether it was just a restructuring, or you know, I've been talking to a lot of other clubs around the league, 'how are you doing things?' And so for me it was part of the learning process….and it's just part of the whole progression of how we want things to be and how we want to make our own mark. So it wasn't just one thing. It wasn't a cultural thing. It was just having more knowledge and experience.”
Pegula said she’s still not certain exactly how she wants to structure PSE going forward.
“Well right now, honestly, I don't know yet how I want it to look at the end of the day," she said. "I'm still learning, and now that there's been a couple more layers that have been taken away it's just allowed me to learn more and understand more. Like I said, I'm still talking to other teams, been very involved at the league level, understanding the information and the resources they have and how they can help our club, just so that we can be better long-term. Right now I don't have a timeline.”