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General Manager in Waiting: Don’t skip an opportunity

Not many weeks ago, the Buffalo Sabres decided to scrap their front office and coaching staff after a disappointing 2016-17 NHL season. The Sabres were the worst team in the Atlantic Division, second worst in the Eastern Conference, and fifth worst in the NHL. The team seemed like they had the mix to at least be close to the wild-card race. The roster was made up of some young talent to go with a handful of older proven players.

Young star Jack Eichel struggled to start the season with an ankle sprain. The defense wasn’t very deep past Rasmus Ristolainen. And the scoring depth just wasn’t there to keep the team in the hunt on top of giving up the 19th-most goals per game.

That led to the owners deciding to clear out much of the front office staff and the coaches and rebuild the whole apparatus. Eventually, this led them reportedly hiring Jason Botterill as their new general manager.

Botterill was a professional hockey player for eight seasons and was a first round draft pick by the Dallas Stars. He played in 88 NHL games, but otherwise spent his career in the minors and dealt with a number of injuries. After he retired, Botterill spent the 2007-08 season as a scout for the Dallas stars before joining the Pittsburgh Penguins front office as Director of Hockey Operations.

After two years in that position for the Penguins, he was promoted to Assistant General Manager as well as General Manager of the Penguins AHL team, the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. Following the 2014 season, Ray Shero was fired as the Penguins’ General Manager and Botterill was named Interim General Manager to continue preparations for the upcoming draft.

When the Penguins hired Jim Rutherford as their new General Manager, Botterill was promoted to Associate General Manager. Botterill along with fellow Penguins Assistant General Manager Tom Fitzgerald were rising stars in their front office. Both were seen as future replacements for Rutherford as well as potential general manager candidates for other teams.

A year later, Fitzgerald moved to the New Jersey Devils following his old boss Ray Shero. That left many viewing Botterill as the Heir Apparent for the Penguins’ general manager job.

So what happened?

Botterill got an opportunity and took it.

Whether there was an explicit or implicit understanding that Botterill was to be the next Penguins’ General Manager, we will probably never know. But if he was, and even if it was an explicit agreement, it doesn’t benefit Botterill to wait around and find out if it comes true.

Yzerman didn’t wait around

It leads me to think about Steve Yzerman’s situation with the Detroit Red Wings and the concept of a “General Manager in Waiting.” Many thought Yzerman would be the next General Manager of the franchise that he helped pull from the ashes and led to multiple Stanley Cup championships as The Captain. It turned out that current General Manager Ken Holland didn’t want to give up his job for Yzerman, or for assistant general manager Jim Nill. Both ended up leaving Detroit for opportunities elsewhere when their path to ascension was blocked by Holland.

The Red Wings spent energy investing in both Yzerman and Nill only to see them walk away and for other franchises to benefit from their experiences. While the Red Wings did benefit from their time working for the organization, you have to wonder where the Red Wings might be now if Yzerman, or even Nill, had taken over instead of going to Tampa Bay and Dallas respectively. Instead, the Red Wings have floundered while their farm system has run dry and the team has missed the playoffs for the first time in what feels like forever.

Teams are always going to be looking for the best people to fill out their front office. It’s what it takes to be successful as an organization. The risk that you always take with that strategy is that eventually they can become experienced enough and respected enough in the league that another team will be willing to give them a shot at running a franchise. For an executive, being named a General Manager in Waiting for a team may be a path to becoming a general manager. But you can’t wait around for it. Yzerman didn’t, and look where it’s landed him.

Yzerman is in a great situation, with a great owner that has given him the leeway to run the hockey operations as he sees fit. He’s built a successful farm system and put a solid product on the ice, even if there have been some bumps in the road along the way. He saw an opportunity and he took it. If he had waited for Holland to retire or be fired and turned down other opportunities, he could still be sitting in the Red Wings front office waiting for the call.

The grass isn’t always greener, but for a General Manager in Waiting, it’s sure can be worth the risk to jump the fence for a chance.

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