Kevyn Adams Press Scrum, July 2, 2025

[PonyBoy2]

27 minutes ago, oddoublee said:

Mjd....you're getting it!

 

It's been 5-6? years at the helm now with no playoffs for Adams.

Have you seen some of the coaches & GM's who've won cups, conference championships, divisions in that time frame who were fired?

It's not bashing, it's diehard Sabre fans stating statistics & calling out  ineptitude. 

 

 

[shrader]

2 hours ago, Mango said:

What Sabres employee who does press conferences would you like them to ask?

I'm other orgs it's a dumb question. My issue is the lack of follow up. A single question is "meh".

You have to hammer him about the orgs performance, his performance, and how continuously the offseasons are focusing on the wrong things over and over and over again.

Firing the producer for being critical is a great jump off point.

It’s like asking a surgeon about what toilet bowl cleaner the janitor is using. It has absolutely nothing to do with his job. Hell, he probably hasn’t actually seen a Sabres broadcast in ages. “Hey Kevin, why is the arena food substandard?”

[Taro T]

34 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

The Sabres actually thought this out and did the correct thing. Gee.

Close.  The CORRECT thing would've been to offer him $900k before QO's needed to be submitted.  Then run the rest of it the way they did.  But they really can't be faulted on this one.

[PromoTheRobot]

Just now, Taro T said:

Close.  The CORRECT thing would've been to offer him $900k before QO's needed to be submitted.  Then run the rest of it the way they did.  But they really can't be faulted on this one.

But he has to accept that offer! His agent knew he was due for arbitration. It would have been agent malpractice to sign for that before QO's

[7+6=13]

39 minutes ago, PonyBoy2 said:

 

It's been 5-6? years at the helm now with no playoffs for Adams.

Have you seen some of the coaches & GM's who've won cups, conference championships, divisions in that time frame who were fired?

It's not bashing, it's diehard Sabre fans stating statistics & calling out  ineptitude. 

 

 

Diehard, now that's funny.

[Mango]

12 minutes ago, shrader said:

It’s like asking a surgeon about what toilet bowl cleaner the janitor is using. It has absolutely nothing to do with his job. Hell, he probably hasn’t actually seen a Sabres broadcast in ages. “Hey Kevin, why is the arena food substandard?”

No it's not.

The negative comments are a 1:1 correlation to how bad a job him and Pegula have done.

To keep the same hospital example it's like adding the Chief Surgeon if he feels responsible for the Chair of the Department firing administrators for releasing the number of people they killed that year in the OR.

Seeing as Kevyn Adams is doing the one killing in the OR, it seems like a totally fine question. 

[Taro T]

Just now, PromoTheRobot said:

But he has to accept that offer! His agent knew he was due for arbitration. It would have been agent malpractice to sign for that before QO's

That's why the statement was "then run the rest of it the way they did."  If he won't sign, don't make the QO but tell him the $900k will be available for a time, but the Sabres will be looking elsewhere on what they're going to do.  Let the agent test FA, and either you end up with him as it appears the best offer he got was Detroits or the agent gets Detroit to up its offer a smidge.

Either way, its a non-loss.  Paying him $1.7MM would've been the loss.

And, again, they handled it reasonably.  It's just frustrating that they got rid of the 1 guy we know of (besides Dahlin) that can play next to Power.  And if Kesselring ends up Power's partner and they have chemistry; well, the Sabres saved $900k.  It's just that seems to be a pretty low cost insurance policy.

[Taro T]

2 minutes ago, Mango said:

No it's not.

The negative comments are a 1:1 correlation to how bad a job him and Pegula have done.

To keep the same hospital example it's like adding the Chief Surgeon if he feels responsible for the Chair of the Department firing administrators for releasing the number of people they killed that year in the OR.

Seeing as Kevyn Adams is doing the one killing in the OR, it seems like a totally fine question. 

Wow, are Sabres fans ever a dark bunch.  Guess 14 years will do that to you.

[PerreaultForever]

Bumbling idiot. 

Holding money for free agency where you sign nobody, holding money to match an offer sheet, holding money to pay future stars (who you trade away), but oh noooooooooooooooooooooo, there's no internal cap. No way. We are committed to winning. 

Honestly, how f'n stupid do they think fans are??? You think players don't see this as an unserious organization? 

This is Sabres management:

 

[Taro T]

8 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

Bumbling idiot. 

Holding money for free agency where you sign nobody, holding money to match an offer sheet, holding money to pay future stars (who you trade away), but oh noooooooooooooooooooooo, there's no internal cap. No way. We are committed to winning. 

Honestly, how f'n stupid do they think fans are??? You think players don't see this as an unserious organization? 

This is Sabres management:

 

Thing is, they aren't really storing up all that much cap space.

Per puckpedia, with 14F's, 6D, and 2G's, they have $12.865MM in cap space with Byram, Timmons, and Levi left to sign.

Byram will be at least $6MM on a bridge and likely around $8MM on a deal cutting into some of his UFA years.  Leaving them with ~$5-7MM.  Timmons will be ballpark $1MM.  Levi ballpark $2MM.  Yes that's 24 bodies, not just 23, but how often is the team going to only have 23 players on the big club's roster.  And after those signings, they'd have ~$2-4MM left.  Which shockingly is what NHL teams end up with.  Not the $8MM+ they tend to like to keep available.

Once Byram's fate (contract, whatever) is determined; then we'll know if there's room for any other moves.  But it's not like they're sitting at $20MM waiting on making sure Byram doesn't get a $13MM offer (and he ain't getting a $13MM offer).  They're about where they should be $wise, but personally would like to see them about $1MM away from the cap on opening night rather than $4-5MM away.

[GoPuckYourself]

5 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Here's the press scrum from earlier

 

He's got that deer in the headlights look. 

[shrader]

1 hour ago, Mango said:

No it's not.

The negative comments are a 1:1 correlation to how bad a job him and Pegula have done.

To keep the same hospital example it's like adding the Chief Surgeon if he feels responsible for the Chair of the Department firing administrators for releasing the number of people they killed that year in the OR.

Seeing as Kevyn Adams is doing the one killing in the OR, it seems like a totally fine question. 

“To keep the same hospital example”… and then offers up a completely different scenario. 

[Stads]

Kevyn could have also figured out a trade well before July 1st for Byram. Then, he would have known exactly how much cap space he would have had to work with at the start of free agency. Then, he could have actually tried to sign players for amounts that fit into said cap structure. He needs to just admit that spending to that cap is not happening. I would at least admire him being honest

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, Taro T said:

That's why the statement was "then run the rest of it the way they did."  If he won't sign, don't make the QO but tell him the $900k will be available for a time, but the Sabres will be looking elsewhere on what they're going to do.  Let the agent test FA, and either you end up with him as it appears the best offer he got was Detroits or the agent gets Detroit to up its offer a smidge.

Either way, its a non-loss.  Paying him $1.7MM would've been the loss.

And, again, they handled it reasonably.  It's just frustrating that they got rid of the 1 guy we know of (besides Dahlin) that can play next to Power.  And if Kesselring ends up Power's partner and they have chemistry; well, the Sabres saved $900k.  It's just that seems to be a pretty low cost insurance policy.

Lol. You think $25,000 is enough of a carrot? What are taxes in Michigan?  4.75%? They are 9.65% for that income level in New York. So $875K is more money in Detroit than $900K is in Buffalo.

 

[Taro T]

5 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Lol. You think $25,000 is enough of a carrot? What are taxes in Michigan?  4.75%? They are 9.65% for that income level in New York. So $875K is more money in Detroit than $900K is in Buffalo.

 

So offer him $950k.  It still doesn't break the bank and they've sent guys wtih bigger contracts to Ra-cha-cha.

And you realize that unless he resides in NYS for 6 months and a day is he liable for the full contract getting taxed as a NYS resident.  Taxes aren't necessarily a fully apples to apples comparison as each jurisdiction they play in have their own tax laws that the accountants are only too happy to figure out.

Again, said overall they did fine on this, but personally would like to have seen them give him a bigger offer.  Why?  Because he's the only guy besides Dahlin that Power has played with and had the pairing look good.  That's important.  You find something that works, keep it.

Btw, unless he wants to live in Detroit proper, his tax rate would be 5.45% in Michigan.  And his NYS tax rate would be 6.85%.    So, yeah, $25k would cover the extra ~$10k he'd pay in tax.

[HumanSlinky39]

As long as this man is in a position of power this cannot be viewed as a serious hockey organization.

He sealed his own fate when he whined about palm trees and taxes. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Good players don't want to play in Western NY so why even pursue them?" I think there's also some shell shock from the Taylor Hall debacle. That was the one big FA he was allowed to sign and he was garbage before being traded for detritus during the same season.

This franchise is going nowhere as long as a jellyfish like KA is making these decisions. We need somebody with vision, fortitude, and most importantly BALLS to do the job.

Edited 8 hours ago by HumanSlinky39

[Huckleberry]

You know up until he started talking about McLoed I was thinking , dude is just unsure and don't know what he is doing.
After McLoed

But then he can talk about the only deal he did well, he had some confidence, yeah this guy is not it.   The simple honesty is not there, in my work life I love when people below or above me own up to their mistake and say, man you were right and I will do the same.

A boss or someone below me like him, I would never trust.

Edited 7 hours ago by Huckleberry

[PromoTheRobot]

15 minutes ago, Taro T said:

So offer him $950k.  It still doesn't break the bank and they've sent guys wtih bigger contracts to Ra-cha-cha.

And you realize that unless he resides in NYS for 6 months and a day is he liable for the full contract getting taxed as a NYS resident.  Taxes aren't necessarily a fully apples to apples comparison as each jurisdiction they play in have their own tax laws that the accountants are only too happy to figure out.

Again, said overall they did fine on this, but personally would like to have seen them give him a bigger offer.  Why?  Because he's the only guy besides Dahlin that Power has played with and had the pairing look good.  That's important.  You find something that works, keep it.

Btw, unless he wants to live in Detroit proper, his tax rate would be 5.45% in Michigan.  And his NYS tax rate would be 6.85%.    So, yeah, $25k would cover the extra ~$10k he'd pay in tax.

You're being pretty naïve, thinking that you can just dangle $25K over whatever to Bernard-Docker's agent to get him to come back after you let him go to free agency. It doesn't work like that.

[JohnC]

36 minutes ago, GoPuckYourself said:

He's got that deer in the headlights look. 

I thought he responded well to the questions asked. He wasn't evasive or defensive. He gave clear and succinct answers to the questions. I thought his answer regarding Docker and why he was not signed was reasonable and made sense. He pointed out that his arbitration comps would be higher than how they valued him. I have been critical of him as a GM but I don' see why this clip should provoke any criticism. I'm not going to read too much into this interview and come away with any negative or positive feelings. It was a standard presentation that most GMs do. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

The KA press  conference in a nut shell.

Blah, blah, blah, excuse for not really fixing the team, blah, blah, blah.

I wonder if Adams is really Charlie Brown’s teacher. 

Edited 7 hours ago by GASabresIUFAN

[Mango]

54 minutes ago, shrader said:

“To keep the same hospital example”… and then offers up a completely different scenario. 

You can't keep the janitor because it's not comparable. Like not even a little bit.

[GoPuckYourself]

44 minutes ago, JohnC said:

I thought he responded well to the questions asked. He wasn't evasive or defensive. He gave clear and succinct answers to the questions. I thought his answer regarding Docker and why he was not signed was reasonable and made sense. He pointed out that his arbitration comps would be higher than how they valued him. I have been critical of him as a GM but I don' see why this clip should provoke any criticism. I'm not going to read too much into this interview and come away with any negative or positive feelings. It was a standard presentation that most GMs do. 

I don't really care what he has to say any longer, show us the baby or gtfo. 

[dudacek]

I really think you guys are missing the crux of the JBD discussion.

Adams called him an 8 and treated him like he's an 8. If JBD is just that — another in a long collection of Adams blueline tweeners — he made the right call. If he is a clear step above Bryson, Johnson and Jones and a serviceable #6D, then the board is right and Adams ***** up.

It's not really about anything other than player evaluation.

Edited 6 hours ago by dudacek

[dudacek]

As far as the saving/creating cap space in order to deal with the Byram situation I'm not going to let my skepticism about Adams blind me to the fact that keeping enough flexibility in order to deal with whatever may come is actually a prudent course of action.

The more I parse through the variables there in terms of offer sheets and trade packages, it's pretty easy to see the wisdom.

Where the BS meter kicks in to overdrive is the fact that chances are good they won't trade Bo for a $12M cap hit return.

And what if the return only carries a $6M hit? Does anyone think they will use the rest of their space to further improve the roster?

Adams has set himself up smartly under the cap, but it's not the first time he's done that.

And every time before this he has failed to use the space his manoeuvring has created to its full advantage.

I'll believe this time will be different when I actually see it.

Edited 6 hours ago by dudacek

[Taro T]

3 minutes ago, dudacek said:

As far as the saving/creating cap space in order to deal with the Byram situation I'm not going to let my skepticism about Adams blind me to the fact that keeping enough flexibility in order to deal with whatever may come is actually a prudent course of action.

The more I parse through the variables there in terms of offer sheets and trade packages, it's pretty easy to see the wisdom.

Where the BS meter kicks in to overdrive is the fact that chances are good they won't trade Bo for a $12M cap hit return.

And what if the return only carries a $6M hit? Does anyone think they will use the rest of their space to further improve the roster?

Once again, Adams has set himself smartly, but it's not the first time he's done that.

And every time before this he has failed to use the space his manoeuvring has created.

I'll believe this time will be different when I actually see it.

Yep.

Hope for the best.  But believe they'll actually spend to/near the cap when they actually do so.  And not a minute sooner.