Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Buffalo Sabres pulled the plug on the Kevyn Adams experiment on Monday, relieving him of his duties as general manager of the team after parts of six seasons.
In his place comes Jarmo Kekalainen, who was hired this past offseason to serve as a senior advisor to Adams in Buffalo.
Kekalainen now becomes the 10th general manager in franchise history, and the first general manager hired by the Sabres since Scotty Bowman in 1979 who enters the role in Buffalo while having past experience as a general manager in the National Hockey League.
Prior to joining the Sabres, Kekalainen was general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets for parts of 12 seasons between 2013 and 2024. While in Columbus, Kekalainen helped build a Blue Jackets team that went 410-362-97 in 869 regular-season games and qualify for the playoffs five times.
Longtime Blue Jackets reporter Mark Scheig says when Kekalainen was first hired by the Blue Jackets during the 2012-13 season, the team was in a similar position to where the Sabres are now.
"There was some talent on the team, but there was a little bit of a culture issue. There was an accountability issue. That's when John Davidson hired Kekalainen, the first European general manager in the NHL, to be able to bring a much-needed culture that the Blue Jackets were missing," said Scheig in an interview with WBEN. "It took him a couple years to build, but once they finally got to the playoffs, they made it for consecutive seasons, and he ended up leaving the Blue Jackets as their greatest general manager in franchise history."
Through 32 games this season, the Sabres currently sit at .500 in the Eastern Conference standings with a 14-14-4 record and 32 points. However, that has them tied for last place in the conference with the Blue Jackets.
After taking over as general manager of the Sabres in 2020, the team under Adams has gone 178-196-42 and have failed to clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Buffalo's win percentage of .478 has them ranked 26th overall in the NHL in that span.
Scheig feels there are a number of things Sabres fans can expect of Kekalainen in the role of general manager in Buffalo.
"He's well-respected in the league, but he's a professional in the way he acts. He could be a little bit of a tough negotiator, but what's really important to him is building from the ground-up a culture and accountability. That's his very foundation, and that's something the Sabres, Sabres fans have been clamoring for a long time," Scheig said. "At least in that aspect, that's something that they can expect Jarmo to really tackle right off the bat here."
While Kekalainen was hired by the Blue Jackets after having served as a general manager in the Finnish professional hockey league, Scheig says the role of general manager in the NHL was something Kekalainen handled quite well.
"There was a lot of transition there, but he held a lot of roles in the NHL previously before that really helped," he said. "He's really known in the hockey world as a good talent evaluator. Certainly not perfect, he didn't hit on everything in Columbus, but he definitely hit on a couple. Back in his time when he was a personnel director and really more involved with scouting, names like Marian Hossa, names like Alex Pietrangelo, at different parts of the earlier 2000s, he was involved with that. So he has a real eye for talent, and I think that - along with the other experience he had, both overseas and in the NHL - really helped him develop what was needed to become an effective general manager."
The fact that Kekalainen lasted on the job in Columbus for just over 11 years is something Scheig feels shouldn't be overlooked.
"Some general managers definitely don't make it that far. To be able to be over a decade in the same role, there has to be a level of success there," Scheig said. "You can question what he did at the end with the Blue Jackets with the roster, but he had a lot of wins. I think the experience he gained through all the years, all the different roles, really helped him in Columbus, and it's going to serve him well, especially at the beginning, with the Sabres."
One trait that stands out to Scheig during Kekalainen's tenure with the Blue Jackets was his bold moves, whether that'd be a coaching hire or a number of trades that helped the team during their stretch of success.
"Jarmo is not afraid of the big move at all," Scheig said.
"He's going to look at the whole situation in Buffalo, he's is going to see what's out there. And if there's something that interests him, even if it's a much bigger move, he's definitely willing to go down that road."
Among the notable moves during Kekalainen's tenure in Columbus included:
- Hiring veteran head coach John Tortorella after firing Todd Richards following an 0-7-0 start in 2015.
- Acquiring forward Artemi Panarin from the Chicago Blackhawks at the 2017 NHL Draft.
- Acquiring forward Matt Duchene from the Ottawa Senators at the 2019 NHL Trade Deadline.
- Acquiring forward Patrik Laine from the Winnipeg Jets in 2021.
- Signing forward Johnny Gaudreau as a free agent in 2022.
So where did it all go wrong in Columbus that led to Kekalainen's downfall? Scheig feels it was simply a matter of time running its course after a series of events.
"When Panarin left, when [Sergei] Bobrovsky left, there were still some guys on the team so they tried to make it work past. But then COVID happened and the bubble situation happened, where they got into the bubble playoffs, Tampa Bay knocked them out. And then moving forward from there, Seth Jones decided that he wasn't going to re-sign there, so the word 'rebuild' was thrown out there. Kekalainen had a chance to kind of start over, and that's when Yegor Chinakov was drafted in the first round, Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger were drafted in the first round. And then he had the chance to draft Adam Fantilli before he ended up getting fired," Scheig noted.
"It just turned out to be a situation where a lot of his roster moves were really questioned. He signed some guys to some really brutal contract. He signed Damon Severson to a huge contract that has not worked out, that's still on the books here in Columbus. I just think the combination of the on-ice product, trying to blend a rebuild and making the playoffs didn't work, and it happened for multiple seasons. Everything ran its course, and they felt that it was time for a change."
Despite the moves made over the course of a longer period of time catching up to him in Columbus, Scheig believes he's learned from that, and hopes it's not something that gets repeated in Buffalo.
"Kekalainen is going to try to do a lot of the same things with the Sabres that he did with the Blue Jackets in trying to build them up, set a foundation, and then be able to build from there," Scheig added. "The Blue Jackets now, if they get success, they still have Kekalainen to thank, because a lot of his imprint is still involved with the players that are on this team. It's just they have to try to figure out why they can't hold third period leads, why are their young players not popping to this point? There could be some player development issues going on, we're really not sure yet. We'll see how well that goes.
"He's going to be good at drafting, he's going to be good at developing, and he's going to be good at being able to look at the Sabres roster to see what works, what doesn't, and be able to build that foundation they've been desperately needing for so many years."
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