Sabres Announce Kevyn Adams has been relieved of his duties; Jarmo Kekäläinen is the New Sabres GM

[Sabres Fan in NS]

So, let me see if I have this straight ...

They fire an all round good guy for not taking the team to the next level - whatever that might be.

And they replace him with a dude with a much harder to say name who had never taken a team any further than where the Sabres are right now.

Sounds legit.

Also, the timing sucks.  Just before Christmas and all that Jazz (😎) ...

At this point give him the rest of the season and a nice returement package.  

Adams will be hired someplace - watch he'll end up in Columbus.

[Doohickie]

12 minutes ago, Sabres Fan in NS said:

At this point give him the rest of the season and a nice returement package.  

He's got a contract. He'll get paid. 

[erickompositör72]

36 minutes ago, Thorny said:

If Adams didn’t realize why he was over his head it goes a long way towards explaining why he was so bad at the job. Frankly the idea he is that stupid is more of a pot shot at the guy (and far more unrealistic) than the idea he was maximizing the term of his employment as a priority. 

He’s not stupid. He’s probably pretty smart. You know what he wasn’t? A Sabre.

Genuinely curious what you mean by "he wasn't... a Sabre."

 

There are a few different ways one can take this, so I was hoping you'd expound!

[Doohickie]

1 minute ago, erickompositör72 said:

Genuinely curious what you mean by "he wasn't... a Sabre."

 

There are a few different ways one can take this, so I was hoping you'd expound!

He never played for them.

 

Neither did Jarmo.

[North Buffalo]

I still am at a wait and see approach... hope its not just toilet paper at the wall and Jarmo happened to stick... show me

[shrader]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

Arbitrarily waiting until after the trip was dumb and unfair 

it’s arbitrary. You don’t HAVE to do it that way. Surely getting on with it was better than letting him twist in the wind with the entire internet saying “DO IT!”

Firing him at any point during the season would qualify as arbitrary. To remove that label they would have had to do exactly what they should have done and fire him during the past offseason… especially since they knowingly brought in the replacement already . 

Edited 5 hours ago by shrader

[irregularly irregular]

44 minutes ago, HumanSlinky39 said:

Gonna be a lot of missed umlauts around here going forward.

Kekāläinen 

Not even gonna try. It's either GMJK or Jarmo for me. You want carpal tunnel surgery, have at it. 

[HumanSlinky39]

26 minutes ago, Sabres Fan in NS said:

So, let me see if I have this straight ...

They fire an all round good guy for not taking the team to the next level - whatever that might be.

And they replace him with a dude with a much harder to say name who had never taken a team any further than where the Sabres are right now.

Sounds legit.

Also, the timing sucks.  Just before Christmas and all that Jazz (😎) ...

At this point give him the rest of the season and a nice returement package.  

Adams will be hired someplace - watch he'll end up in Columbus.

Kekāläinen took a doormat franchise and built a team that made the playoffs 4 straight years and knocked off the President's Trophy winning Lightning in 2019. His tenure wasn't perfect, but he made them a helluva lot better. Hired Torts. Drafted much of the young core they're building around now, too.

He's a quantum leap past Adams.

Edited 6 hours ago by HumanSlinky39

[dudacek]

Adams was hired for a job he was not qualified for and he failed to grow into the role, despite being given an overly long leash with which to do so.

I’ll remember his failure as being based largely on 3 fronts:

1. Gross negligence in the crease: he entered just one of his six seasons with a ‘settled’ situation in  goal. Even that blew up in his face when UPL’s game imploded after getting his big contract.

2. An aversion to experience both on the ice and off it: his preferred path was giving people their first opportunities at whatever role he was tapping them for and trusting them to figure it out eventually.

3. A preference for people he liked over people who got the job done: there is a long list of Marty Wilfords, Jacob Brysons and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonens littering his tenure. His desired outcome always seemed to be “we’ve had honest conversations and he’s happy to be here” over all else.

Jarmo will bring a better depth of knowledge, accompanied by what I expect will be a more decisive, cutthroat approach — befitting of what is a decisive, cutthroat, results-based business. He's qualified, he's had a look inside the hood already, and the cupboard is not bare.

I think this was always the most likely outcome from the decisions made last spring. My greatest fear was it would be accompanied by an utter meltdown where we would lose Tage, Tuch and Ras in the process, and the clock would have to be reset yet again.

But that hasn't happened yet, and it does not need to be the case.

Onward, and (hopefully) upward.

[Pimlach]

45 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

This comment makes me think the scenario I laid out earlier was correct. Terry wanted to move on from Adams after last season but he also feared hiring the wrong hockey guy so he brought him in as senior advisor to get to know him. I guess he passed the test but the question would be was the test to see if he's competent or was it to see if he'd be loyal to Terry and do what he's told. Time will tell. 

It's doubtful he can be worse than Adams. Now let's see what moves he makes. 

 

It was likely a test, or better to call it an evaluation, of his competence, stature and temperament.  Jarmo’s role as an advisor would not likely be a good way to test if he will follow all orders without question.  

He is not married to any of the AGMs, scouts, coaches, or players so I expect we will see significant changes.    Having 8 months in house will help him to determine who to keep.  

I want to hope that Terry did this hire better than the others.  

[Goldseatsaud]

Now I’m really interested in the Sabres. It’s long time coming. 

[Taro T]

1 minute ago, dudacek said:

Adams was hired for a job he was not qualified for and he failed to grow into the role, despite being given an overly long leash with which to do so.

I’ll remember his failure as being based largely on 3 fronts:

1. Gross negligence in the crease: he entered just one of his six seasons with a ‘settled’ situation in  goal. Even that blew up in his face when UPL’s game imploded after getting his big contract.

2. An aversion to experience both on the ice and off it: his preferred path was giving people their first opportunities at whatever role he was tapping them for and trusting them to figure it out eventually.

3. A preference for people he liked over people who got the job done: there is a long list of Marty Wilfords, Jacob Brysons and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonens littering his tenure. His desired outcome always seemed to be “we’ve had honest conversations and he’s happy to be here” over all else.

Jarmo will bring a better depth of knowledge, accompanied by what I expect will be a more decisive, cutthroat approach — befitting of what is a decisive, cutthroat, results-based business. He's qualified, he's had a look inside the hood already, and the cupboard is not bare.

I think this was always the most likely outcome from the decisions made last spring. My greatest fear was it would be accompanied by an utter meltdown where we would lose Tage, Tuch and Ras in the process, and the clock would have to be reset yet again.

But that hasn't happened yet, and it does not need to be the case.

Onward, and (hopefully) upward.

Welcome back!!!!

[Sabres Fan in NS]

8 minutes ago, HumanSlinky39 said:

Kekāläinen took a doormat franchise and built a team that made the playoffs 4 straight years and knocked off the President's Trophy winning Lightning in 2019. His tenure wasn't perfect, but he made them a helluva lot better. Hired Torts. Drafted much of the young core they're building around now, too.

He's a quantum leap past Adams.

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

[Thorny]

2 minutes ago, erickompositör72 said:

Genuinely curious what you mean by "he wasn't... a Sabre."

 

There are a few different ways one can take this, so I was hoping you'd expound!

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 

[Night Train]

He should have been canned last year after the 0-10-3 stretch.  

I guess Purgatory had another year left on his deal. 

[gilbert11]

2 hours ago, Stads said:

Maybe Jarmo was already pulling the strings before the win streak started. Maybe he pushed to get Östlund back in the lineup. Or maybe none of that is true and I look like a jackass saying it. It would not be the first time

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

[tom webster]

1 hour ago, ... said:

So, you maintain your position that Adams didn't realize he was in over his head. I can see why, although I'm also open to Adams fully realizing the role was too big for him.

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.

[IKnowPhysics]

5 hours ago, Brawndo said:

[PerreaultForever]

34 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

It was likely a test, or better to call it an evaluation, of his competence, stature and temperament.  Jarmo’s role as an advisor would not likely be a good way to test if he will follow all orders without question.  

He is not married to any of the AGMs, scouts, coaches, or players so I expect we will see significant changes.    Having 8 months in house will help him to determine who to keep.  

I want to hope that Terry did this hire better than the others.  

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. 

[Brawndo]

2 hours ago, Taro T said:

The reporting makes it sound like Adams did go on the trip.  @Brawndo, can we get a confirmation either way on whether Kevyn did get to enjoy his last hurrah in person?

He did 

[...]

3 minutes ago, tom webster said:

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.

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.

[tom webster]

3 minutes ago, ... said:

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.

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.

[transient]

48 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Adams was hired for a job he was not qualified for and he failed to grow into the role, despite being given an overly long leash with which to do so.

I’ll remember his failure as being based largely on 3 fronts:

1. Gross negligence in the crease: he entered just one of his six seasons with a ‘settled’ situation in  goal. Even that blew up in his face when UPL’s game imploded after getting his big contract.

2. An aversion to experience both on the ice and off it: his preferred path was giving people their first opportunities at whatever role he was tapping them for and trusting them to figure it out eventually.

3. A preference for people he liked over people who got the job done: there is a long list of Marty Wilfords, Jacob Brysons and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonens littering his tenure. His desired outcome always seemed to be “we’ve had honest conversations and he’s happy to be here” over all else.

Jarmo will bring a better depth of knowledge, accompanied by what I expect will be a more decisive, cutthroat approach — befitting of what is a decisive, cutthroat, results-based business. He's qualified, he's had a look inside the hood already, and the cupboard is not bare.

I think this was always the most likely outcome from the decisions made last spring. My greatest fear was it would be accompanied by an utter meltdown where we would lose Tage, Tuch and Ras in the process, and the clock would have to be reset yet again.

But that hasn't happened yet, and it does not need to be the case.

Onward, and (hopefully) upward.

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. 

[Weave]

1 hour ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Do you Kevyn is relieved that the drama is over.

I think over now is happening intensely.

[Jorcus]

41 minutes ago, Night Train said:

He should have been canned last year after the 0-10-3 stretch.  

I guess Purgatory had another year left on his deal. 

You might call it Pagulatory.