{"id":761390,"date":"2026-07-14T00:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/761390\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T00:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:48:08","slug":"buffalo-hires-john-davidson-as-a-senior-advisor-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/761390\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Hires John Davidson As A Senior Advisor \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Buffalo Sabres have hired John Davidson<\/a> as a senior advisor, the team announced Monday<\/a>. The 73-year-old reunites with general manager Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen<\/a>, with whom he worked for the better part of a decade in Columbus.<\/p>\n

Davidson brings 20 years of NHL front-office experience to Buffalo, including 18 seasons as president of hockey operations across St. Louis, Columbus, and the Rangers. His work with the Blue Jackets is the most directly relevant piece: Davidson took over in 2012-13 after the club had finished with 65 points the prior season, hired Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen as general manager shortly thereafter, and the pair oversaw the most successful stretch in franchise history, including four straight playoff berths and a franchise-record 108 points in 2016-17. Davidson also served as Columbus\u2019 interim general manager in 2023-24 during his second stint with the organization.<\/p>\n

The hire continues an aggressive offseason of front-office building in Buffalo, which last year brought in Josh Flynn and Marc Bergevin<\/a> as assistants under Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen. Davidson becomes the third member of the Sabres\u2019 hockey operations department with NHL general manager experience, joining Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen and Bergevin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis experience leading multiple organizations, combined with his player evaluation skills and relationships around the NHL, make him a great fit for this role,\u201d Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen said in the team\u2019s release, adding that Davidson would contribute across all areas of the hockey department.<\/p>\n

Davidson\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 stretches well beyond the executive suite. A first-round pick by St. Louis in 1973, he spent a decade as an NHL goaltender with the Blues and Rangers before a lengthy broadcasting career that earned him the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award and Hockey Hall of Fame induction in 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres have hired John Davidson as a senior advisor, the team announced Monday. The 73-year-old reunites…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1809,385,99],"class_list":["post-761390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761390","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=761390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}