Jason Botterill, who was hired as the Sabres' general manager in 2017 after spending 10 years in the Penguins' organization, has been relieved of his duties in Buffalo.
The team announced the move Tuesday. The Sabres also announced they had named Kevyn Adams, previously the team's senior vice president of business administration, as the new GM.
Sabres owners Terry and Kim Pegula released the following statement on their GM change:
“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.”
The move comes just a few weeks after Kim Pegula told the Associated Press that Botterill would return for what would have been his fourth season with the team in 2020-21.
“I realize, maybe it’s not popular with the fans, but we have to do the things that we feel are right,” she said at the time. “We have a little bit more information than maybe a fan does, some inner workings that we see some positives in.”
It's unclear what changed between then and Tuesday related to the "philosophical differences" that led to the decision.
Sabres are currently paying three general managers, or the equivalent of 10 percent of the league's GMs. https://t.co/y2UezHuAy4
— Аrpon Basu (@ArponBasu) June 16, 2020
Buffalo, which has not made the postseason since the 2010-11 season, saw its 2019-20 season come to an end when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced an expanded playoff format for the resumption of the season, which was suspended amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The 30-31-8 Sabres did not qualify for this year's playoffs.
In Botterill's three seasons on the job, Buffalo finished eighth, sixth and sixth, respectively, in the Atlantic division.