Again, don't disagree with any of this as possibilities.
For item 1, they cut VERY early in the COVID experience, so I do think they went scorched earth with the team early, not knowing what was coming.
For item 2, I do think they know they need a new stadium for the Bills and renovations for the Sabres. The new stadium takes precedent, so I think they are going in order.
For item 3, I'm always looking at the simplest answer. They spend winters in Florida. 8 Bills games are a lot easier to make than 41 Sabres games. It'll be telling if they attend the outdoor game vs Toronto, and RJ's last call.
I think it's a lot simpler than you are making this out to be. Pull the job titles off and just look at what the front office people do.
Adams: oversees the entire operations, go between for the organization and the Pegula's, front man for the organization, offers general direction to the front office.
Karmanos: oversees scouting, player development, analysts, and the Amerks.
Now, match the job titles to what they are doing: President of Hockey Operations, General Manager.
It's clear that Karmanos is filling to role of GM, and Adams is the President. In that way, the team has proper management, and the Pegula's have someone they trust in Adams.
We don't know what is happening behind the scenes obviously. It could be they are simply slicing up regular GM duties. Adams seems to be more involved in the day to day than a traditional team president would be, though he could simply start manning the phones when a camera crew is there.
To both of your points-
I do think Botterill was somewhat of a puppet GM. The Pegula's felt that they were misled by Tim Murray and the direction the franchise would go in, and wanted somebody to come in that would do what the Pegula's thought best and wouldn't put up much of a fight. I think it's telling that Tim Murray now races horses in Florida and Botterill is an AGM (Murray was close to a legit psycho in addition to being reckless + Pegula's probably badmouthed him like crazy in league circles). The Sabres continued to fail and the Sabres mistakes continued to mount so Botterill was their next fall guy. Kevyn Adams was put in because he was dirt cheap and would do what the Pegula's said to. I do totally agree that no other NHL team would ever consider him for a GM position. He's woefully unqualified for it. The results haven't been horrible though.
Hearing what Botterill had to say after trading RoR sounded so much like he needed any reason to justify it. He said something along the lines of "well he's 28 and our core is more 18-21 so he doesn't really fit with our timeline any longer" was such utter BS. It sounded like he just came up with something instead of saying "well the Pegula's didn't like his end of season press conference and wanted him gone before he was due a 7.5m bonus at midnight". I heard zero conviction in his voice that he actually wanted to trade him. This is just one example I'm bringing up for why I feel like Botterill was a puppet GM.
Botterill was a trainwreck. There's no way around that. But to see the level of involvement that the Pegula's have at every level of decisions in the NHL seems telling, and leads me to believe that a lot of it was their own doing.
Of course, I could be dead wrong about this. It's mostly based off of Kim Pegula's interview with The Athletic, scenes from Behind Blue and Gold, and re-listening to some old Botterill interviews.
Every GM under Pegula has stated they talk to Terry daily. That's not normal.
No disagreement with the non-bolded.
The bolded is speculative. Last year they were spending 90% of the cap, and in 2019-20 spending to the cap.
They are effectively below the cap floor this season with only a cheap (cash wise) LTIR contract (Boychuk) putting them above. 20-21 appears to have been one last ditch attempt to make it work with Eichel/Reinhart. It would be very difficult to spend less on player salaries this year.
Releasing Botterill and replacing with Adams are two separate decisions / actions. I think it would have been equally dysfunctional to retain someone (i.e., Botterill) who wouldn't execute a directive, for which there apparently was no negotiable compromise, and for whom there was no alternative lateral move, nor feasible demotion.
I'd very much like to hear an insider account of what happened in the days leading up to Botterill firing and Adams hiring. From an outsiders perspective, what appears to have happened is the Pegula's told him he had to fire X% of the staff, and Botterill pushed back/refused. When that happened, Pegula's options for hiring were limited, because it wasn't just GM/Scouts that were being let go, it was long term Sabres staffers that wouldn't traditionally be part of a front office purge. Adams appears to been in the right place at the right time and was willing to be a hatchet man in exchange for the GM role.
I just don't see Karmanos having a GM-level role with the Sabres.
Using the EF wording, the seat of power with the Sabres is with Adams. Karmanos has input into the decision making process. But, Adams is the guy making the final call on things.
Yeah. I certainly don't think its a clear Adams President/Karmonos GM split. I think it's more Adams is likely doing the GM jobs he likes while Karmonos is doing some of the heavy lifting in the background.
You guys act like the Pegulas, a family with a B next to their illions, are house poor.
The Pegula's aren't poor by any stretch. However, I think its obvious they are done burning through cash for this hockey team.