The Sabres announced on Tuesday that Botterill has been fired after three seasons on the job. His official replacement has been announced as Senior Vice President of Business Administration, Kevyn Adams.
The Buffalo Sabres today announced the team has relieved Jason Botterill of his duties as General Manager. Senior Vice President of Business Administration Kevyn Adams has been named General Manager. https://t.co/Y38ysayucc
— Sabres PR (@SabresPR)
June 16, 2020 In a statement released by Terry and Kim Pegula:
"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.
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.
New General Manager Kevyn Adams and Head Coach Ralph Krueger already have a close working relationship and we are excited to see what they can do together as we reconfigure our hockey operations. We have the benefit of this long 2020 pause to take time to reorganize and re-energize our hockey department. We recognize the importance of this offseason with so many player decisions to be made.
We have had the pleasure of watching Kevyn build his post-playing career over the past nine years under multiple roles throughout our organizations. We are confident Kevyn and Ralph will work together to build a consistent contender. As always, we are here to provide the necessary resources.
Our fans deserve better, and we are all tasked with the burden to improve and provide them a consistent, contending team for years to come.”
In three seasons as general manager of the Sabres, Botterill finished his tenure with a 88-115-30 record, which amounted to finishes of 31st, 27th and 25th place in that span. The team has shown minimal improvement over the three seasons under Botterill's lead, and has extended its franchise record playoff drought to nine consecutive seasons.
This past season saw Buffalo finish 30-31-8 in 69 games before the season ended prematurely for the Sabres due to the coronavirus pandemic. The team ended up finishing just two points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the 12th and final spot in the Eastern Conference qualifying round in the NHL's Return To Play format this summer.
The Sabres have also fired the rest of their front office staff in assistant general managers Randy Sexton and Steve Greeley.
Adams becomes the ninth general manager in franchise history, and the fourth general manager of the Sabres since the Pegulas bought the franchise back in 2011. The Clarence, New York native has been part of the Sabres organization since 2011 as a development coach after retiring from the NHL in 2009 after a 13-year career in professional hockey. The 45-year-old has also spent time as an assitant coach under head coach Lindy Ruff, and was named as the Senior Vice President of Business Administration in September of 2019.
Keep it locked to WGR and WGR550.com for the latest on this developing story.
