{"id":360733,"date":"2025-12-20T22:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T22:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360733\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T22:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T22:25:09","slug":"sabres-fire-associate-gm-jason-karmanos-in-first-front-office-move-by-jarmo-kekalainen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360733\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres fire associate GM Jason Karmanos in first front-office move by Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"A general view of the Buffalo Sabres logo on a jersey\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-1296858629-e1766256772759-1024x684.jpg\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"responsive\" class=\"image-next-root\" style=\"border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;right:0;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0;border:none;margin:auto;display:block;width:0;height:0;min-width:100%;max-width:100%;min-height:100%;max-height:100%;object-fit:cover\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Article_ImageCaptionCredit__mkXi_ article-image-caption-credit Typography_body1__xfKuc inherit Typography_base__jzSqr\">Moving on from Jason Karmanos marks Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen&#8217;s first move made in Buffalo&#8217;s front office. Kevin Hoffman \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 The Buffalo Sabres have fired associate general manager Jason Karmanos, the team announced Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The move comes five days after Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen replaced Kevyn Adams as the team\u2019s general manager. When introduced Tuesday, Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen noted that he already had changes in mind, some would be short term and others would be longer term in nature. Moving on from Karmanos is the first move he\u2019s made in Buffalo\u2019s front office.<\/p>\n<p>Adams hired Karmanos as an associate general manager in April of 2021. In that role, Karmanos served as the general manager of the Rochester Americans, the Sabres\u2019 AHL affiliate. The Amerks made the playoffs in each of Karmanos\u2019 four seasons in that role, and he also hired Rochester coach Michael Leone. Karmanos was based in Pittsburgh during his entire time with the Sabres.<\/p>\n<p>This is further evidence that Sabres owner Terry Pegula will give Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen the necessary autonomy and resources to build Buffalo\u2019s front office in his image. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/nhl\/article\/32-thoughts-maple-leafs-will-face-core-questions-if-struggles-continue\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman<\/a> reported this week that, \u201cI\u2019ve heard for years one of the biggest impediments in Buffalo is that there are too many cooks in the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6904224\/2025\/12\/19\/buffalo-sabres-jarmo-kekalainen-kevyn-adams\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">interview with The Athletic this week,<\/a> Sabres COO Pete Guelli said that will not be the case under Kekalainen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJarmo\u2019s the only cook, and actually, he\u2019s more like a chef, and it\u2019s his kitchen,\u201d Guelli said. \u201cHe\u2019s making all of the decisions relative to hockey, and we\u2019re excited to get behind him and give him the resources to make this organization successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Sabres still have two assistant general managers, Mark Jakubowski and Jerry Forton. Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen, who spent more than a decade as the Columbus Blue Jackets\u2019 general manager, worked closely with several high-ranking front-office members still employed by that organization and may seek to surround himself with trusted assistants to begin changing the culture in Buffalo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moving on from Jason Karmanos marks Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen&#8217;s first move made in Buffalo&#8217;s front office. Kevin Hoffman \/&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1809,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-360733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-buffalo-sabres","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}