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No. Not tearing him down. Simply adding context. He IS the most successful GM the BJs have had. The entirely of the team successes they earned during his tenure corresponded directly to the years that Zito was working for Kekalainen. Even stated in the original post about this that it is a correlation and not necessarily causation. He was the GM for roughly 11 years. The team was reasonably successful (and compared to the rest of their existance, extremely successful) in the 1st 7 years that he was the GM. They were not successful in the nearly 4 full seasons after that (and only in this last season with him removed from the picture have they shown the possibility that they MAY once again be relatively successful). And am 100% hoping HE is as good as we need him to be. Expecting in one way or another that he'll be here for the next 4 or so years (and if the team is successful in that stretch (PLEEEEEAAAAASE) for significantly longer than that) so we need him to be good. He's been aggressive, even after Zito left, and he did something NOBODY expected in landing Gaudreau and doing it without having to outbid everyone by a significant margin. There are things to like about him. He'd had coursework prior to going to college and because of that managed to graduate in only 2 years. He's been a GM on both sides of the pond; he started out very briefly as an agent; and has held several roles within the hockey departments of some pretty good teams prior to becoming the BJ GM. There also is the fact that his successes as GM correlate extremely well with the time Zito was working for him.

I started a thread. Idk if anyone cares much but maybe.

Mikael Granlund

Never questioned his smarts, questioned why he thought he was smarter than others and yeah, he does come off like that, saying trope words, saying all the robotic things so it can explain away. Maybe the problem is that media just accepts it and doesn't delve. Shame on them, but as far I am concerned he his just a mannequin dressed for success in a window hawking wares on Main Street when 50 years ago it mattered.

Refresh my memory. Why did the Sabres fire Dan Bylsma? Was it to appease a certain premature captain?

Justin Carbonneau is 6'1.25" 205lbs

here's a summary

The Sabres Rights to Him expired on June 1st

I always saw him listed at 5’11”

We have an update That's going to change a lot. He won't slide now.

I think the Smithers comp is much more accurate than an egotistical blame avoider. I’ve never felt Adams sounded intelligent or that his ego was in the way of him succeeding. He’s admitted his mistakes. The problem is he wasn’t held accountable for them. He’s an incompetent yes man that apparently has carte Blanche with ownership. Pegula’s penny pinching is destroying the franchise. Signing Taylor Hall to a one year $8 million dollar contract had to be vetted through Terry? Yikes. He doesn’t want to pay coaches that aren’t working for him. So Lindy gets to inherit Granato’s questionable staff and god knows what other things are compromised in the organization. I’m sure scouting, analytics and other areas are being neglected due to self imposed financial constraints.

Hagens is going to drop. I assume this is 5'9.5"

It would never happen, but the Sabres are more-well-positioned to make such a move than most other teams. Adams and Ruff are in the final years of their contracts. There have been rumors, or at least speculation, that both could move into other roles (Adams to POHO, Ruff to an advisory role). A veteran GM, Kekalainan, was recently hired as a Senior Advisor. Heck, you could make an argument that, looking ahead to the future, Adams, Ruff, and Kekalainan, would just be doing their jobs if they put there heads together and concluded that the Sabre organization would be foolish to not take a run at DeBoer. Together they could recommend speeding up the transition of Adams to POHO, Ruff to Senior Advisor, Kekalainan to GM, and hiring DeBoer as head coach. Requires someone with a vision though.

I need to put this on the t-shirt and point to it anytime my wife asks me a question

In the Robertson thread, things got a little off topic (probably me) and I referenced Ruff having the option to bring in his own coaches and that he chose not to. This has come up a few times that fans reference Ruff not being able to choose his own staff. In the Palm Trees and Taxes press conference from Dec 6, 2024, just after the 19:30 mark, Fairburn asks about the coaching staff. That is when Adams answered with "...Lindy was very, very adamant he wanted to get to know the current people..." and with "If Lindy didn't feel comfortable with the [coaches] in the room, then they wouldn't be in the room". I don't doubt that Adams endorsed Wilford, Ellis, Bales, and Appert. Also, I suppose Adams could be outright lying, and it was always the case that it was take it or leave it on the coaching staff. But it strains credulity in my opinion, that they wouldn't allow Ruff any flexibility in choosing his staff. I'm pretty down on Ruff, but it is hard for me to square that if 64 year old Lindy Ruff, with the 3rd most games coached in NHL history, a man never shy to share an opinion, wanted to bring in one or two of his own coaches, that he would not have demanded it. Further, it would be incredibly weak of Ruff to not only accept having a staff forced on him, but to also accept the GM lying about it. Anyway, I'm just posting this as a record for those who care about the coaching staff question. Again, it's at around 19:30 that it starts. Also, a warning: I don't recommend watching the entire thing again. It is incredible that we just saw Pete DeBoer, who over the last 3 years has won more regular season games than any coach in the league and the 3rd most playoff games, get fired for criticizing his goalie in a press conference, and yet Adams (0/5 for the playoffs) is still Sabre GM when 6 months ago he stood in front of the world and made clear that he is not capable of doing his job.

https://chl.ca/ohl/article/bulldogs-sign-head-coach-jay-mckee-to-three-year-contract-extension/

Credit where it's due: Dangle on his podcast calling Kevyn "Wayland Smithers" was brilliant.