What happens next? General manager Kevyn Adams, having been fired on Monday by owner Terry Pegula and replaced by Jarmo Kekalainen, is gone after a five-and-a-half-year run in which he failed to build the Buffalo Sabres into a playoff team.
Adams, a Clarence native Pegula and his wife, Kim, a co-owner, hired as GM despite having never worked in an NHL hockey department, came oh-so-close to delivering that elusive playoff berth in 2022-23, when the Sabres fell one win short.
But a season that felt like the start of something special ended up being the high point of Adams’ tenure, and the Sabres’ postseason drought reached an NHL-record 14 seasons.
Thirty-two games into another trying campaign – despite a season-long three-game winning streak that brought them .500, entering Monday’s schedule, the Sabres ranked eighth in the Atlantic Division and 15th in the Eastern Conference, six points out of the final wild card spot – Terry Pegula decided to change his GM.
“I would like to thank Kevyn for his dedication and loyalty to the Buffalo Sabres,” Pegula said in a statement. “He has been a reliable presence, and we are appreciative of his enduring care and commitment. I personally wish him and his entire family all the best.
“We are not where we need to be as an organization, and we are moving forward with new leadership within our hockey operations department. We are dedicated to building an organization that is competitive year after year, and we have fallen short of that expectation.”
Some of Kekalainen’s plan for building the Sabres into a contender will likely be laid out during his news conference this morning in KeyBank Center.
The Finn, 59, joined the Sabres as a senior advisor to Adams in late May, and has been a fixture around the rink all season.
Kekalainen spent 11 years as GM of the Columbus Blue Jackets before being let go in 2023-24, leading them to their four highest point totals in franchise history and to five of their six playoff appearances. In 2019, they upset the Tampa Bay Lightning, who tied an NHL record by winning 62 games, in the first round of the playoffs.
“The hiring of Jarmo was the result of an extensive search process in which Jarmo stood out as our top choice for the senior advisor position,” Pegula said in a statement. “Jarmo has distinguished himself over the last eight months, and his experience, professionalism, and drive speaks for itself. I am looking forward to him leading our organization to the next level.”
While he certainly worked closely alongside Adams over the last seven months, Kekalainen’s inheriting a roster, coaching staff and front office someone else constructed.
Inevitably, there will be changes, and some might happen soon. Kekalainen has a lot on his plate.
Winger Alex Tuch, one of the Sabres’ most valuable and popular players, can become an unrestricted free agent following the season. Lindy Ruff is the NHL’s only coach whose contract expires following the season.
Kekalainen took over the Blue Jackets in February 2013 after spending three seasons as GM of Jokerit in Liiga, a Finnish league. Before returning home, the Finn served as assistant GM and director of amateur scouting for the St. Louis Blues and director of player personnel for the Ottawa Senators.
In the late 1990s, the Finn served as GM of HIFK, a Liiga team, while also scouting for the Senators.
Kekalainen, a former forward, spent two seasons at Clarkson University before playing 55 NHL games with the Boston Bruins and Senators over parts of three years.
In another market, under a different owner, Adams, 51, might’ve been fired following last season or a year ago during the Sabres’ stunning 13-game losing streak.
But the Pegulas trusted Adams, who played 10 seasons in the NHL and won the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006. Following a brief stint as an assistant coach with the Sabres from 2011 to 2013, they hired him to run the new Academy of Hockey at LECOM Harborcenter.
Adams’ work impressed them so much that in 2019 they named him the Sabres’ senior vice president of business administration. Then they stunned the hockey world in 2020 by firing GM Jason Botterill and naming Adams his replacement.
After a wretched first season – the Sabres won just 15 of their 56 games and lost 18 consecutive contests during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign – Adams began patiently rebuilding the team his way, refusing to take any shortcuts.
He traded Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart, two forwards the Sabres drafted second overall, and selected defenseman Owen Power first in 2021.
By 2022-23, the Sabres appeared to have the nucleus of a team that be might be a perennial playoff contender or even more.
But they never improved after that 91-point season, and they’ve mostly struggled over the last two and a half years as Adams reshaped some of the roster.
Adams fired coach Don Granato after a disappointing 84-point finish in 2023-24 and brought back Ruff, a franchise icon. Some young core players who earned long-term contracts – most notably goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, center Dylan Cozens and defenseman Mattias Samuelsson – regressed.
During the Sabres’ implosion a year ago, Adams did not make a move. Shortly after he traded Cozens to the Senators on March 7 in exchange for center Josh Norris, the newcomer departed the lineup with a torn oblique he suffered in Ottawa.
Norris, who suffered an upper-body injury opening night, has played just nine games for the Sabres.
Still, the Sabres finished last season on a 12-7-1 run, generating some mild optimism they had developed a consistent style needed to win in the ultra-competitive NHL.
But when they struggled out of the gate this year, it felt like a change would eventually be made.