It has been quite a busy week for Buffalo Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams.
For a while, he's been working with his staff to prepare for the 2020 NHL Draft, and all their hard work went to work on Tuesday and Wednesday with five new prospects in the system.
However, the week gets even more hectic on Friday as NHL Free Agency gets started at 12 p.m. ET. This is where we could see Adams and the Sabres really make some more key additions or subtractions to the roster for the upcoming 2020-21 season.
Adams took some time on Thursday to join Howard Simon and Jeremy White on WGR to recap the NHL Draft, as well as look ahead to free agency, and also discuss the possible return of some players including Dominik Kahun and Lawrence Pilut.
Here is some of what he had to say:
Adams' thoughts on the 2020 NHL Draft class for the Sabres:
"We were excited, obviously. I was thinking about it last night when I did my press conference that I'm sure every team at the end of the two days looks at their guys and say, 'Wow, this looks great.' That's how we feel.
"I'm really proud of the staff, I'm proud of Jeremiah Crowe, Jason Nightingale and all of our scouts because we really kind of reset how we were going to do things back in June and really put a work in. We wanted to make sure that we started with a clean slate, and we put players on our list over the last few months that we felt met the measurements and metrics that we were looking for. Then we dove deep from there and ultimately made our choices. It was a great process. I learned a lot, and I loved it.
Adams on not extending a qualifying offer to Dominik Kahun:
"We like Dominik and we're having conversations. We did yesterday and last night with his agent just to make sure that we're staying in touch, so we'll keep the lines of communication open.
"I think part of it is we looked at our team and roster, we want to make sure that we're also giving ourselves some flexibility as we head to tomorrow. I think as you look around the league, we anticipated maybe a unique offseason where there may be more names and players not qualified just based on the situation that's going on right now. We wanted to make sure that we went in with eyes wide-open and we'll make decisions from there."
Adams on defenseman Lawrence Pilut:
"We really like him, and for us, [extending him a qualifying offer] that was a no-brainer. He's a player that obviously made a decision, and that was before I was in this role, and we wanted to make sure that we retained his rights. We'll obviously watch him, and by us qualifying him shows that we value him in terms of in the future. We'll see what happens, but he's definitely a player we like."
Adams on bringing back some unrestricted free agents this offseason:
"We've already been having different conversations all along with different players and their agents, but we definitely do have interest and we'll see what happens over the next 24 hours. I do feel strongly that when you talk to an agent and they represent a UFA (unrestricted free agent) on your team and they think about exploring free agency, I completely understand it. As a player, that's part of the work you put in to put yourself in that position. We want players that understand and want to be here. Sometimes you can let players go to free agency, see what's going on, and maybe they end up back here. I have no problem with that."
Adams on becoming a better team this offseason:
"We understand that we have to be a better matchup team and a little bit - harder to play with is such a generic hockey term, but we want to make sure that harder to play against doesn't mean the old days of running someone over or fighting. It just means attacking or taking time and space away, those type of players. When I look at our [defense], we want to make sure that we're putting players together that fit. Those are things that we're looking at and areas that we want to improve.
"As we head into tomorrow, we'll have priorities, we'll think about how we want to do things, we'll be calculated. The ultimate wild card is if you're looking to sign a free agent, they have to want to be here and it has to work. So we'll see how it shakes out."
Adams on what it means to be a Sabre:
"A Sabre for me is someone that gets up every day, they're team first, they want to be here, they want to believe in what we're doing, they want to believe in this city, they want to buy in to something that's bigger than them and want to be part of something special. And just relentlessly, unselfishly working towards the same goal, which is to win the Stanley Cup."
You can listen to the entire interview below: