The Buffalo Sabres have been holding internal discussions about replacing general manager Kevyn Adams, three NHL sources have told The Athletic.
Adams has been Buffalo’s general manager for the last five and a half years. He’s currently with the team in Seattle, where the Sabres will finish a six-game road trip with a game against the Kraken on Sunday night. The team is due to arrive back in Buffalo on Monday morning. No final decision is expected until the Sabres return home, two of the sources said.
The Sabres, via a team spokesperson, declined to comment on the matter. Meanwhile, The Athletic contacted Adams by text message on Friday, and he did not reply.
Adams, whose contract runs through the 2026-27 campaign, failed to get the Sabres back to the playoffs in his five full seasons on the job. During that time, the Sabres have extended their playoff drought to a league record 14 seasons. Buffalo is currently in last place in the Eastern Conference with a 13-14-4 record.
The Sabres have a logical replacement candidate on an interim or permanent basis on their staff in Jarmo Kekäläinen, who joined the team in May as a senior adviser. Kekäläinen previously spent 11 years as Columbus Blue Jackets GM and before that held several high-ranking positions in front offices in the NHL and Europe. Kekäläinen is currently back home in Finland dealing with a personal matter, but he has been around the team regularly throughout the season and has made a strong impression within the organization, two of the sources said.
Kekäläinen is the most experienced member of the hockey operations department and had a greatly different resume than Adams did when he was hired as GM in 2020. At that point, Adams had no meaningful experience working in an NHL hockey operations department. He had spent the previous six years working as the general manager of Harborcenter, Sabres owner Terry Pegula’s multi-use hockey and hotel facility, and running the Academy of Hockey and Junior Sabres. Adams also spent about a year and a half as the Sabres’ vice president of business administration before abruptly getting the general manager job. Pegula didn’t interview anyone else for the opening and defended the hire by pointing to his trust in Adams and his willingness to communicate, something that had become a problem under previous general manager Jason Botterill.
During Pegula’s ownership, the Sabres have only had first-time general managers. The Sabres have not made the playoffs in a full season of Pegula’s ownership, which began in February 2011.
Pegula hasn’t fired a general manager midseason since he fired Darcy Regier in November 2013. Back then, Pegula explained the decision by saying, “Why now? I just decided, and that’s the only answer I can give you. When you work together, sometimes you get to the point where a change is needed.”
This team could be at that point. The Sabres have won two straight games but are still in last place in the Eastern Conference with a .484 points percentage. They are currently seven points behind the Detroit Red Wings for third place in the Atlantic Division. According to The Athletic’s NHL playoff projections, the Sabres have just a 17 percent chance of making the postseason.
Under Adams’ leadership, the Sabres’ rebuild has stagnated. In his first season on the job, the Sabres fell to the bottom of the standings and ended up picking No. 1 in the 2021 NHL Draft. Not long after, Adams began a rebuild that included trading disgruntled veterans like Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart and Rasmus Ristolainen. Eichel and Reinhart went on to win the Stanley Cup in Vegas and Florida, respectively.
After a 76-point season in 2021-22, Pegula gave both Adams and then-coach Don Granato contract extensions. But after a 91-point season in 2022-23, the Sabres have taken a step back in consecutive seasons. Lindy Ruff took over as coach in 2024-25 but hasn’t been able to produce better results in the standings than Granato did.
In addition to the hockey reasons for potentially letting Adams go, the Sabres have started to face an untenable situation with their fan base. Adams’ path to the job made fans skeptical of him. The on-ice results haven’t helped. And Adams’ public reputation took a sharp turn last season when he said Buffalo was not a destination city, and then was asked how he sells the Sabres’ situation to free agents and players who have Buffalo on a no-trade list.
“You have to earn it,” Adams said. “For me, it’s really simple. You become a perennial playoff team, you make the playoffs, you have a chance to win the Stanley Cup year after year, you’re on (fewer) no-trade lists. We don’t have palm trees. We have taxes in New York. Those are real, and those are things you deal with.”
The palm trees and taxes portion of the quote did not go over well with a frustrated Sabres fan base. Fans showed up to the next home game with inflatable palm trees and chanted for Adams to be fired. The chants for his ouster have continued into this season, most recently during the team’s Nov. 28 home loss to the Devils.
The business and hockey realities of the situation have made Adams’ continued employment a distraction on and off the ice.
The Sabres also have some pivotal hockey decisions to make in the coming months. Alex Tuch, who is due to become an unrestricted free agent in July, is still unsigned. Josh Doan, Zach Benson and Michael Kesselring are all extension-eligible restricted free agents at the end of the season. And the NHL trade deadline in early March is a key point on the calendar for reshaping the roster.
After wrapping up this road trip in Seattle, the Sabres will have three days off before a home game against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night. But a lot could change for this team between now and then.
