OK, before you ask, I am almost 68 years old and have been a sports fanatic all my life. From watching the Bills beat the Chargers in back to back AFL Championship games in 1964 an 1965 to listening to Mickey Mantle’s walk-off home run against the Cardinals and Barney Schultz in the ‘64 World Series and watching Jean Beliveau and the Montreal Canadians on Hockey Night in Canada on a grainy black and white TV, I’ve experienced a lot of sports in my lifetime. That said, I’ve never seen a sports organization run more poorly that the Buffalo Sabres since Terry Pegula bought the team. Pegula arrived with visions of Stanley Cups. These visions have turned into delusions of grandeur with the Sabres setting an NHL record for futility by going 14 straight years without making the playoffs. Last December I wrote a piece on this blog about Terry Pegula being the worst owner in professional sports so I don’t plan on repeating myself here. What I do want to get into, however, is the absolute incompetence of Kevyn Adams as a GM>
Lets start with the hire. At the time (5+ years ago now) Adams had retired as a hockey player where he was a 3rd-4th line role player known as a good teammate and hard worker. After retirement he joined the Sabres organization as a coach for various Buffalo Junior Sabres teams as well as an individual charged with running the Harbor Center where the Sabres practice. Not the kind of resume one would expect from an NHL GM. This was especially true given the fact that the Sabres prior GMs and coaching staffs, for the most part had been inexperienced and had failed to deliver a winning team. From Tim Murray and Jason Botterril (Both 1st time GMs) to Phil Housley, Ralph Kreuger and Don Granato (all 1st time coaches) the Sabre were mired in mediocrity, having the first or second worst record in the league three of the six years before Adams was hired. One would have thought that a competent owner would have seen the error of his ways and hired a respected experienced GM to run the show. Had they done so maybe, just maybe, they would have made Adams an assistant GM to give him on the job experience which is always something useful in his position. Instead, in an apparent cost cutting move, Pegula promoted Adams.
In the five years Adams has overseen this team they have the worst record in the NHL. They’ve missed the playoffs all five years in spite of having, at one time, Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhardt, Ryan O’Reilly, Evander Kane, Brandon Montour, and others on the team. In the past five years all were traded by Adams. All were sick of losing and wanted out. Can you blame them? Just look at Jack Eichel as an example. One of the top players in the league, second pick of the draft. A “generational player” who spent five years here. In all five years, for all intents and circumstances, every game he played after New Year’s day meant nothing as the Sabres had little to no chance of making the playoffs. Add to that he gets hurt and the Sabres refuse to allow him to have the surgery of his choice. Ryan O’Reilly “lost his love for the game” while playing here. Sam Reinhart was so sick of losing he also wanted out. In the past five years countless Sabres who left the organization went on to win Stanley Cups for other teams.
In the past five years Adams has seen his team finish 31st, 24th, 20th, 22nd and 26th. What has he done to improve this team? Let’s take a look at what he hasn’t done:
1. Draft: over the past five years the Sabres have drafted eight players in the first round. Owen Power was the #1 pick so it’s hard to miss on him. Zach Benson has been a decent young player although he seemed to regress his second year in the league. Jiri Kulich had a decent year last season and looks to be a top six forward. Jack Quinn has been somewhat of a bust, especially considering the guys picked after him (Cole Caulfield, Marco Rossi, Cole Perfetti, Seth Jarvis, Anton Lundel and others). The rest of the group are all similar players to Benson, Kulich and Quinn. Less than 6’ tall. Less that 200 lbs. Similar game (offensive skill players). Matt Savoie got traded. Rosen, Ostland and Helenius toil down in Rochester with nowhere for them to go. A perfect example is Rosen: 14th pick in the draft. Played great at World Juniors for Sweden. Last year in Rochester he scored 28 goals in 61 games and was one of the best players in the AHL. Problem is that there is nowhere for him to play in Buffalo given their present roster (which I will address next). As a whole, given where the Sabres have drafted Adams has done little or nothing to improve his NHL team.
2. Roster: Going into this off season I was hoping that the Sabres would use Bo Byrum, Jack Quinn, a top prospect in Rochester and the 9th pick in the draft (or some iteration of the above) to acquire a top six forward to go with Thompson, Tuch, Peterka, Norris, Zucher, McLeod, Benson and Kulich to give the Sabres a good if not very good top 12. Having three lines that can score (remember when Roy, Vanek and Afinogenof were the third line back in 2005?) would be a huge addition. Instead, we subtract Peterka ($.75/1.00 on that trade) and add a bunch of fourth line guys that all seem to do the same thing. Yes Adams wants to make the Sabres tougher to play against. Yes that’s a good thing. The problem is you now have too many of those grinder types. Were do Greenway, Doan, Malenstyne, Krebs, Kozak, Danforth and Geertsen play?
It’s the same of defense. We start with Dahlin, Power, Samuelson and Byrum, all of whom appear to be on next year’s roster. We draft a right handed defenseman with the 9th pick of the draft (No objection to that) and then pick up a right handed defenseman in the trade for Peterka (Kesserling). We then trade Clifton for Timmons, waive Bernard-Docker (who had just been acquired by the Sabres in March and who had played very well), re sign Ryan Johnson, sign Jack Rathbone and retain Bryson. That’s 9 defensemen on one-way contracts. Where do they all play? Are any of the recent acquisitions any good? Just look at Timmons for a minute: In March of 2025, Timmons AND Connor Dewar were traded by the Leafs to the Penguins for a fifth round pick in the 2025 draft. Three months later we give up a second round pick AND Conor Clifton for a guy that we could have had three months earlier for next to nothing. This is just poor planning, poor management and blatant incompetence. If they wanted Timmons why didn’t they get him in March for next to nothing. Instead, Adams overpays for a marginal bottom pair defenseman.
Let’s now look at the Peterka trade. This was just a brutally incompetent trade. Instead of getting value, Adams once again (like he did with Eichel, Reinhart, O’Reilly and others gives up the best player and gets two or three guys who aren’t as good in return. That’s not how you build a Stanley Cup winner, much less a team looking to at least make the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong here. Kesselring and Doan will make next year’s team. They both seem to be better than who they will replace (Clifton and Lafferty?) but neither will ever be the player that JJ Peterka is now, much less what he will become in the future. The kid scored 55 goals in the past two years WITHOUT first line PP minutes. He was one of the Sabres best forwars in 5 on 5 play. He is 23 fricking years old. And we got a fourth line winger and a second pair defenseman for him. Just brutal.
3. Trades/non-trades: So we traded Eichel and got Tuch and Krebs, traded Reinhart and got a first round pick, traded Montour for a second round pick and have a bunch of one-dimensional forwards sitting in the minors. Our goalie situation is a mess and we got rid of out third best forward. We have 9 NHL(???) defensemen and seven guys who are slated to play fourth line. The only real prospects in the chain are blocked by mediocre NHL talent. I was hoping that this year Rosen would do what Peterka had done in the past two years. Peterka was brought up and scored 12 goals as a rookie. He then progressed to 28 and 27 goal seasons. Kulich scored 15 goals last year in 62 games and should get better his second year like Peterka did. This would have been a perfect year for Rosen to come up and play 3rd line minutes to hopefully develop like the two former guys did. Instead he is blocked by guys like Quinn, Krebs, Doan, Greenway. Last year we traded Matthew Savoie, a highly rated prospect for Ryan McLeod. McLeod did everything one would ask last year with career highs in goals and points and deservedly got a new $5M/yr. contract. He is a solid third line center. These are the types of players the Sabres need. Letting 1st round picks languish in the minors of years without moving them just reduces their value. Adamas needs to figure this out.
Unless some miracle trade comes to fruition in the next few weeks this team looks like an 80-85 point team that will miss the playoffs a fifteenth straight year. Adams is so far in over his head that the Sabres hired a former NHL GM Jason Karmanos and former player Eric Stahl to “assist” Adams. Why wasn’t this done five years ago when Adams was an inexperienced novice? Why now after being on the job of five years? This whole organization is just run ass-backwards. Pegula needs to make changes if he really wants to win. IMHO, he’s so infatuated with the Bills that he cares little about the Sabres. Remember the “if we need money I’ll jst drill another well”? Again the sabres will be well under the cap and on the outside looking in. So sad.