{"id":341505,"date":"2025-12-13T00:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T00:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341505\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T00:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T00:19:07","slug":"sabres-considering-replacing-gm-kevyn-adams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341505\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres Considering Replacing GM Kevyn Adams"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sabres have opened the door on talks to remove Kevyn Adams from the general manager\u2019s post, Matthew Fairburn and Tim Graham of The Athletic<\/a> report. If they go in that direction, the announcement won\u2019t be made until next week after Buffalo wraps up its Western Conference road trip.<\/p>\n

If Buffalo does put a new face in the GM\u2019s 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\u2019s senior VP of business administration.<\/p>\n

This time around, the Sabres have a much more experienced and logical promotion candidate in former Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen. Buffalo brought the 59-year-old in as a senior advisor<\/a> to Adams over the offseason. He\u2019s done most of his work for the club remotely, though, and Fairburn and Graham report he\u2019s currently in his native Finland dealing with a personal matter. If he\u2019s to be Adams\u2019 successor, they won\u2019t be making a move until he\u2019s back stateside.<\/p>\n

The Sabres may have gained some goodwill with their fanbase with back-to-back wins, but it\u2019s far too early to tell if that\u2019s the beginning of something bigger in what\u2019s been an incredibly streaky season. Through the ups and downs, they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

2025-26 is Adams\u2019 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\u2019 skill as a front-office executive is overbearing, though, given Buffalo\u2019s now long-standing losing culture and suspected underfunding and overstepping by ownership.<\/p>\n

The Sabres\u2019 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\u2019s (and league\u2019s) record books, another behind-the-bench move isn\u2019t a realistic option at this time.<\/p>\n

Buffalo gave Adams a multi-year extension back in 2022<\/a>, but never released the terms. That deal remains active and runs through the 2026-27 season, per Fairburn and Graham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sabres have opened the door on talks to remove Kevyn Adams from the general manager\u2019s post, Matthew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[741,49,48,27494,4247,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-341505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-buffalo-sabres","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-kevyn-adams","12":"tag-newsstand","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}