BUFFALO — Jarmo Kekalainen made it clear that qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs won\u2019t be enough as long as he\u2019s general manager of the Buffalo Sabres.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s great to make the playoffs, but we’re not just here to make the playoffs — we’re here to try to build a championship team,\u201d Kekalainen said Tuesday, one day after replacing Kevyn Adams as Sabres GM. \u201cWinning the Cup is the goal. I think every team in this league is here for the same goal, and that’s the goal that we have with the Buffalo Sabres. Obviously, you\u2019ve got to make the playoffs first to be able to even compete for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kekalainen was initially hired on May 30 as a senior adviser to Adams, who was fired in his sixth season. He was GM of the Columbus Blue Jackets from 2013-24, becoming the first European GM in NHL history.<\/p>\n
Buffalo has not qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2011, the longest postseason drought in League history. The closest it has come during that stretch was finishing one point (91) behind the Florida Panthers for the second wild card from the Eastern Conference in 2022-23. The Sabres finished 39-37-6 in 2023-24 and 36-39-7 last season.<\/p>\n
They are 14-14-4 through 32 games this season and entered Tuesday six points behind the Boston Bruins for the second card in the East. However, they\u2019re also tied with the Columbus Blue Jackets for last in the conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we’re close,\u201d Kekalainen said. \u201cYou can\u2019t [hit] the fast-forward button, even if you’d like to sometimes. \u2026 I think there are a lot of good pieces here. I think we’re very close. I firmly believe we can make the playoffs this year. There’s a lot of hockey left.\u201d<\/p>\n
The postseason drought continues to hover over the franchise. Captain Rasmus Dahlin<\/a> and center Tage Thompson<\/a> have endured it the longest, each in their eighth season with Buffalo. Defenseman Mattias Samuelsson<\/a> has been here for six, and forward Alex Tuch<\/a> for five. Thompson, Tuch and Samuelsson are alternate captains.<\/p>\n Kekalainen spoke with the players before his press conference Tuesday. He informed them he has no desire of attempting quick fixes simply to clinch a playoff berth.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to sacrifice the ultimate goal for the sake of making the playoffs and then not having any sustainability for our goal as a team to take the next step and have it be an opportunity, a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup,\u201d Kekalainen said. \u201cSo, no, we\u2019re not going to do that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a plan, and the plan is going to be the Stanley Cup. And we\u2019re not going to take any shortcuts to try to just make the playoffs to end the drought. … We have some really good core pieces here. We\u2019re close. Now we just have to take the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n Buffalo will play its first game with Kekalainen as GM against the Philadelphia Flyers at KeyBank Center on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; HULU, ESPN+). Coach Lindy Ruff is expected to be behind the bench; Kekalainen noted Ruff\u2019s resume \u201cspeaks for itself\u201d and said he\u2019s \u201creally enjoyed\u201d his time so far with him.<\/p>\n Ruff, 65, is in his second stint as Sabres coach after being hired April 22, 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cHe works his tail off every day, and he’s looking for ways to get better,\u201d Kekalainen said.<\/p>\n However, Kekalainen said he\u2019ll look at everything moving forward, \u201cwhether it’s the scouting staff, management, coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody is under evaluation at this point, but there are a lot of good people here that are great at their jobs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n What Kekalainen hopes to see on the ice moving forward is consistency. The Sabres wrapped up a season-long six-game road trip with a three-game winning streak, their first such run this season, and earned their first regulation road victories in the last two. The trip began with three straight losses and heading into it, Buffalo won only twice away from home, with each going beyond regulation (one in overtime, one shootout).<\/p>\n \u201cLosing to teams that have less talent that outwork you, that\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d Kekalainen said. \u201cWe just can\u2019t have that. … We need to build on the character and the consistency and the competitiveness and be relentless that way.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can we do today to get better, whether it\u2019s on an individual level or as a team? We\u2019re going to focus on today. We don\u2019t even want to look too much into the future. We\u2019ve got a lot of hockey left this year; I think we can do special things with this team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO — Jarmo Kekalainen made it clear that qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs won\u2019t be enough as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-352603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}