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Kekäläinen has a Bachelor's from Clarkson and a Master's in Econ from Tampere Univ. He's served in hockey front office since 1995 and in NHL front office almost nonstop since 1999. Looks like the only break is when he was GM of Jokerit in the Liiga (2010-2012) before becoming GM of Columbus in 2012.

Jarmo wasn't fired for hiring Torts. Columbus had 4 playoff runs after that. If he was fired for hiring anyone, it was for his involvement in the hiring of Mike Babcock, which turned out to be a huge mistake & embarrassment for the team, considering what had been going on with Babcock and the photo sharing debacle that Babcock was involved in.

I'm sure it's buried in this thread but Kekäläinen is the most experienced GM ever hired under Pegula by decades of experience.

Watch that end up having been Lindy himself

You might call it Pagulatory.

No more Sabre retreads either.... No Michael peca, no Jay Mckee, no Dominek Hasek... NO MORE SABRES!!!!

I think over now is happening intensely.

Seeing him screw up the Ullmark negotiation in an effort not to "block" his young goalies, none of whom have panned out, and then having Ullmark win a Vezina with the Bruins while the Sabres have continuously been shopping in the goalie bargain basement bin has to be one of the stupidest, most emblematic gaffes of his tenure. This is the moron that was given almost 6 years to destroy a franchise.

I like “proclivity” better. I knew “condition”wasn’t right. Writing while watching my granddaughter and I can’t multi task as well as I once did. Notice what I did there? And yes, we are far off point.

An interesting perspective. The way the second sentence there is worded is slightly confusing, but if I understand what you're saying correctly, I would disagree that it's a universal condition, especially when a success is involved. I don't even know if "condition" is the correct word, maybe more like "proclivity". Alas, I agree it could be taking the topic too far all things considered.

That's so very Marv though.

He did

I could live with some shakeup among the assistants. The fact that Lindy had to keep the same old crowd was just.... weird.

Well you can't really judge his competence from that either. You can only do that when he actually makes some moves. So in any event it was some sort of test or evaluation. For all we know he told him secretly that he would be GM and his last 8 months was already evaluating for his moves to come. I'm really just thinking this might explain all of Adams inaction this year. Pegula might have nixed any bigger moves. Now they can either sign or move Tuch. Resolve the goalies and do whatever else they think they need to do. I do agree he's a fresh entity with no ties to anyone here and that's good. Everybody can potentially go. First firing should be Staal. Get rid of all those Carolina bums. Just because.

Yeah, that's interesting. My impression is when the 5v5 D coverage is executed correctly, it seems to be effective. Notably as of late. Have the players not been quick enough to play D? Is there something wrong with the 5v5 scheme? I think perhaps he'd have to stay, just as you say, a PK specialist. I mean, you can't give up that PK - if the season is somehow salvaged, the PK will be the reason why, getting them though this period and all.

Yes, I think people like Adams rationalize their failures and live on “what if’s.” I don’t want to take this too deep but I think it’s part of the fabric of the human condition to never admit that your success or lack thereof was really the result of your own abilities or limitations and had little to nothing to do with circumstances or other people.

yes.

He probably had Terry’s ear over the 2 weeks, without KA’s 2 cents.

Did he touch the brim of his hat?

He should have been canned last year after the 0-10-3 stretch. I guess Purgatory had another year left on his deal.

Umm, that coach is Wilford. The guy that is also responsible for the 5v5 defensive zone coverage. Maybe keep him, but make him a PK coaching specialist?

In my estimation much of the ill-informed strategy from Adams was rooted in an unwillingness to accept how fundamental the playoff drought is to what the Buffalo Sabres are right now, up to and including what it portends for how to fix them. I feel like most who have really closely followed the team in recent years can catch the times and instances where he’s seemed to go out of his way towards distancing himself from the sort of immediacy and urgency one would think such a historic drought would demand. Not to mention trials like the stick salute cancellation which illustrated to me the message from the players that they “weren’t cool” with being they punching bags of 14 years of frustration rather than just their…6? I mean, I get it. But it’s only upon the recognition the sabres *are* the drought right now and an acceptance of responsibility to fix it as such that it *can* be fixed, again in my estimation Attaching a long form, excruciatingly slow play rebuild on the tail end of missing the playoffs for a decade already was never going to work in this market. More so, it was never going to work for this franchise: the culture of low expectation has been hammered home so arduously since 2015 that it literally collapses upon itself when more slow-play is heaped on to the end. It pervades the psyche of the players. They are aware of the unaccountability. People always say, “what does it mean to wear such and such crest”. That’s what being a Sabre means right now. Adams didn’t have interest in understanding the true nature of what ailed us, and he understood it a damn sight less than Jack Eichel did, who asked out when he got wind of, to use his words, a team that wasn’t going to be in a situation where they were “going to try and go win”. to me, Adams was never a Sabre. I’m hopelessly biased, I have been since Eichel, my favourite player, and the franchise’s best chance for relevancy, was traded: but frankly, the fact I haven’t changed my argument since thst day, once in 6 years, when it comes to Adams and his plan, and objectively haven’t needed to, probably at least means something

I guess we'll see if Lindy is a GMJK guy and if the speculation that Lindy was told to take Appert et all was/is correct or not. If he likes Lindy and gives Lindy the ability to shape his coaching staff, does Appert go? The only coach worth keeping is whoever is responsible for the PK.

Bet he was fired for hiring Torts. If all you say is true, why is he not still in Columbus?