The Sabres have opened the door on talks to remove Kevyn Adams from the general manager’s post, Matthew Fairburn and Tim Graham of The Athletic report. If they go in that direction, the announcement won’t be made until next week after Buffalo wraps up its Western Conference road trip.
If Buffalo does put a new face in the GM’s chair, it may not mean an outright firing for Adams. There has long been speculation that Buffalo would prefer to keep Adams in its front office in a different role. Whether that comes to pass remains to be seen, but his strong relationship with owner Terry Pegula was the main reason he was put into the role in the first place nearly six years ago, as Fairburn and Graham write. He was something of a shock promotion after the Sabres parted ways with Jason Botterill, previously serving as the team’s senior VP of business administration.
This time around, the Sabres have a much more experienced and logical promotion candidate in former Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekäläinen. Buffalo brought the 59-year-old in as a senior advisor to Adams over the offseason. He’s done most of his work for the club remotely, though, and Fairburn and Graham report he’s currently in his native Finland dealing with a personal matter. If he’s to be Adams’ successor, they won’t be making a move until he’s back stateside.
The Sabres may have gained some goodwill with their fanbase with back-to-back wins, but it’s far too early to tell if that’s the beginning of something bigger in what’s been an incredibly streaky season. Through the ups and downs, they’re last in the Eastern Conference with a 13-14-4 record, on track to extend their all-time record postseason drought to a 15th season.
2025-26 is Adams’ sixth season as GM. Adams only has winning records on two of those campaigns, peaking with an excruciatingly close 42-33-7 record in 2022-23 that had them just one point out of a playoff berth. His career record now stands at 177-196-42 (.477), the eighth-worst points percentage in the league since he took over in the 2020 offseason. Using that as a catch-all for Adams’ skill as a front-office executive is overbearing, though, given Buffalo’s now long-standing losing culture and suspected underfunding and overstepping by ownership.
The Sabres’ step back since that bright spot in 2022-23 has no longer made complacency an option, though. After regressing to 84 points in 2023-24, they fired head coach Don Granato and replaced him with franchise all-time wins leader Lindy Ruff, whose final season in his first stint with the club was the first year of their playoff drought. It marked the seventh coaching change of the period, and with Ruff on an expiring deal and virtually untouchable due to his status in the club’s (and league’s) record books, another behind-the-bench move isn’t a realistic option at this time.
Buffalo gave Adams a multi-year extension back in 2022, but never released the terms. That deal remains active and runs through the 2026-27 season, per Fairburn and Graham.
Whaaaaaaat???
Lol Jeff skinner. Perfect.
@Kevin F — I was just going to write the same thing. What is wrong with those Pegulas??? Maybe they’ll go fishing for Mike Futa. Or Jarmo.
They finally win a road game and now they want to make a change.:D
I’ve noticed that happens a lot. It always seems coaches get fired after wins. Probably those in charge wait until a win so it doesn’t give the impression of “chaotic panicking after a loss.”
Is there a GM available that is worth bringing in to replace Mr Adams?
Adams biggest mistake this past off-season was not acquiring a Big Time Goalie
There is however some talent in Buffalo and they looked good last night
I feel like there’s a guy named Chris Drury who used to play for the Sabres. Can we interest you?
He has enough problems with the Rangers lol
There’s a conspiracy theory on the Rangers’ Reddit that Drury is already a secret agent for the Sabres and that’s why he’s destroyed our roster.
You can have him. He’s single handedly ruined the Rangers.
already been through seven coaches and four gm’s since their last playoff appearance.. will adding another to the body count change anything ?
I can’t think of a GM worse than him over the past 30 years.
Worse than Hextall. Worse than Milbury, even.
Nobody is as bad as Milbury
Milbury’s teams made the playoff with Yashin, Peca and Osgood, etc.
He mismanaged the everloving F out of them and still crushed Adam’s end product.
Snow was pretty bad
Go look at the trades Hexy made to dump salary that Homer left. He actually got value out of overpaid, old vets unlike others who gave up a pick and ghost to get rid of his 4.5 per deal.
He got a third and weal(serviceable) for Vinny and schenn. Got a third from Boston and SJ for Rinaldo and mcginn. The kimmo trade to Chicago and Coburn to tb brought picks used to trade up for TK. Dumped Grossman and Pronger contract to the yotes and got a fourth and can’t remember who but ex oiler before yote. He got assets out of garbage Homer left him.
Late first rounders on frost and farabee to compliment Patrick, TK. On d sanheim and provorov were to be top dmen while still working thru the sam Morin and the other d that Homer drafted on the roster. Drafted Carter Hart, fedotov and errson as well as another for goaltending he was never allowed to see flourish.
Never given proper time to grow the team because Homer wanted to win now with fletch lol. He was given a seven year deal by Snider and after he passed Homer went to the way he thinks he knows which is trade and sign so he brought a puppet in who dismantled everything. Hexy had just cleared all that cap out just in time to bring in fletch to trade for pending fa hayes and give him over seven per. Fletcher tenure in one trade.
There’s more but seeing your original comment I’m pretty sure the info here alone should of taught you some stuff you clearly weren’t aware of.
I’ll take your word for it, I was talking about the arson he committed to the Penguins.
He only made two good moves here, trade for Rakell and drafting of Murashov. Two more than Adams.
Jarmo Kekalainen did a fantastic job as GM in Columbus, He just can’t identify good coaches. Kekalainen, And DeBoer could turn things around in Buffalo.
Hoping he places Pegula on Waivers before he gets fired.
Wait, this guy wasn’t fired already?!?
I’m surprised it’s taken this long to move on from Adams. Terry Pegula is too busy operating the Buffalo Bills and is half a**ing the Sabres operation. I feel sorry for their fans as ownership doesn’t care really about the team.
They’re about 2-3 years too late on this. The damage is done. They somehow went from being the worst franchise in the league to being even worse lol
Shocked I say, just unbelievably shocked. Next thing you know we’ll find out that the sky is blue!
The most remarkable part of all this is that Adams has held the job for six years. Make that make sense.
Friends with the boss.
Firing Adams just to replace him with Jarmo of all people would be crazy work.
@DarkSide830 — Your wish is our command!
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. If they’re only now “considering” replacing him, he’s probably still got a good 7-8 seasons to go.
The question on everyone’s mind is, “Why now? Why not 5 years ago?”
After missing the playoffs for fourteen seasons straight and being in last place this one, winning back-to-back games gets the Sabres jack and sh-t from the fanbase. That’s like shooting someone three times, and then handing them a $5 to go get an ice cream at DQ.
I think that the NHL should be able to force a sale if ownership can’t even build a team that can get into the playoffs in X years. IMO, 7 is enough. It’s not good for the league and certainly not for the fanbase or the organization. From 1990-2011, the Sabres missed the playoffs only six times. They were playoff teams most of those two decades. Fourteen years later, not a single playoff appearance?
To the league, this should be unacceptable. If you’re that poor at ownership of a hockey team, you’re in the wrong line of work and the league should be able to force a sale long before now. It’s ridiculous. Pegula needs to go. The Sabres deserve better and so do the fans.
The players deserve better than to be wasting their prime athletic years playing for an organization run by ownership that doesn’t have a clue about how to build a winning team. They couldn’t even manage their superstar Eichel properly and he went and won a championship with another team instead.