Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - Buffalo Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams kicked off the opening day of training camp on Wednesday by speaking with the media.
The Sabres open their 2024-25 season in Europe with one preseason game and two regular season games. Adams knows they only have three training camp practices, and that changes what they do.
"It’s a unique training camp. When they hit the ice, we’ll be looking for attention to detail, pace, and execution," said Adams on Wednesday. "The days are over where it takes a few days to get into this. Players train so hard now that they’ve been going at it pretty good, so today’s Day 1 in our step to try to do something special. It’s an opportunity."
The first group on the ice Wednesday was totally the players you'd expect to make this team.
"You’ve got to get right to it. You’ll see it’s our team, and that was by design, because we don’t have time to mess around," Adams said. "I think right from this morning, you’re going to see competition, and they’re going to be implementing the system right away. There’s going to be non-negotiables, and that’s what I think our players are craving. You don’t back check, you don’t play. You don’t get the puck deep at certain times, you don’t play. That’s going to be the standard."
Adams seems very confident in the team he’s putting on the ice this season.
"What gives me confidence is the amount of conversations that I’ve had with the players throughout the offseason. It started with individual meetings, and then I had some time where there were small groups early in the offseason, and then conversations through the summer and taking some guys out to dinner, or playing golf with Rasmus Dahlin and picking his brain for four hours," Adams noted. "You put all that together, I think we have a hungry group. I think we have a group that’s ready to be challenged and pushed, and I reminded them yesterday that when you use words like 'accountability' and 'structure', and looking for more competitive, hard practices, they’re going to get it."
The Sabres are approximately $7 million under the salary cap. Adams has been criticized for not going out and getting players they don’t need just to be at the cap.
"Just so our fans understand, there’s been zero pushback from ownership about what we can spend or can’t spend. We will spend the money that we need to spend to win. And as you put your roster together, you can’t just look at it as today," Adams said.
"You’re predicting what future contracts look like, (Jack Quinn, JJ Peterka, Bo Byram and Devon Levi will need deals next season) so this past summer you’re looking at certain situations where there’s trades, and it really wasn’t the dollars because we could’ve spent more dollars. It was the term, and what does that do to the next three or four guys that we have to sign next summer. That’s all part of the equation."
Rasmus Dahlin was the first skater on the ice for the Sabres at practice, but he left pretty quickly after that and never returned. Following Wednesday's session, head coach Lindy Ruff said he was passing the puck and something happened, so they pulled him off as a precaution.
LINES:
Forwards:
Peterka – Thompson – Tuch
Benson – Cozens – Quinn
Greenway – Krebs – Zucker
Aube-Kubel – McLeod – Lafferty
Malenstyn – Kulich
Defense:
Byram – Jokiharju
Samuelsson – Clifton
Bryson – Gilbert
Power
Goalies:
Luukkonen
Levi
