{"id":358265,"date":"2025-12-20T19:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/358265\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T19:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:50:07","slug":"new-sabres-gm-jarmo-kekalainen-fires-executive-jason-karmanos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/358265\/","title":{"rendered":"New Sabres GM Jarmo Kekalainen fires executive Jason Karmanos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dec 20, 2025, 01:02 PM ET<\/p>\n<p>BUFFALO, N.Y. &#8212; Jarmo Kekalainen made his first change since taking over control of the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"06b99a18-3096-3b1f-d339-adab9ac51614\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/team\/_\/name\/buf\/buffalo-sabres\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sabres<\/a>&#8216; hockey operations department, firing associate general manager Jason Karmanos on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Karmanos was in his fifth season with the organization, with one of his primary responsibilities being running the top minor league affiliate, the Rochester Americans of the AHL. The son of Hartford Whalers\/<a data-clubhouse-guid=\"b7b7b58e-e579-b39d-fb2d-70213dd93502\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/team\/_\/name\/car\/carolina-hurricanes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> owner Peter Karmanos, Jason got his start with that organization in 1998 and won the Stanley Cup twice during a stint in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/team\/_\/name\/pit\/pittsburgh-penguins\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/story\/_\/id\/47327038\/new-sabres-gm-jarmo-kekalainen-aims-build-team-character\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/r1590228_682x682_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/story\/_\/id\/47315833\/sabres-fire-long-gm-kevyn-adams-hire-jarmo-kekalainen\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/r1065165_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We thank Jason for his contributions to the Buffalo Sabres and Rochester Americans and wish him the best in his future endeavors,&#8221; Kekalainen said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Owner Terry Pegula promoted Kekalainen to general manager upon firing Kevyn Adams on Monday. The 59-year-old Finn spent just over a decade in that role with the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"724d5dd5-197c-6f1d-29ca-a0b4f25eb1b6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/team\/_\/name\/cbj\/columbus-blue-jackets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> from 2013 to 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The Sabres have the NHL&#8217;s longest playoff drought at 14 seasons dating to their last appearance in 2011. They are in last place in the Atlantic Division and on track to make it 15 years in a row.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dec 20, 2025, 01:02 PM ET BUFFALO, N.Y. &#8212; Jarmo Kekalainen made his first change since taking over&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-358265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358265","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=358265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}