Everything Kevyn Adams has done as Sabres GM

[JohnC]

1 minute ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Let's see - Joki is playing top 4 minutes for a playoff contending team.  He is a good NHL defenseman who is probably best suited to the 5, but that doesn't diminish the minutes he's given us every season since acquired.

I'm not a fan of UPL, but he is only 23 and has given us credible goaltending for the majority of his starts.  I believe he will be a good NHL backup long-term and that is a quality asset.

You sound like me talking about Joki. You are swimming against the current. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

40 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

No he hasn't. 

He's given us 18 of 32 starts with a .893 or better save %. (15 of 32 he had a .9 or better save %).  In 17 of those games, he allowed 3 goals against or less. The Sabres record in those 18 starts is 12-3-3. The average shots on goal in those 18 games were 35+.  

Normally I wouldn't consider a .893  save % credible goaltending, but considering our poor team defense, the injuries to key defenders this season, our lack of D depth, and the fact that we lead the NHL in High Danger Chances allowed, our goaltenders deserve some leeway.  FYI league average goaltending save % is .899.

So while I'm not a huge fan of UPL and he has had some majorly terrible performances, he has been decent to good to very good the majority of games he has started this season.

Edited April 4, 2023 by GASabresIUFAN

[LGR4GM]

19 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

He's given us 18 of 32 starts with a .893 or better save %. (15 of 32 he had a .9 or better save %).  In 17 of those games, he allowed 3 goals against or less. The Sabres record in those 18 starts is 12-3-3. The average shots on goal in those 18 games were 35+.  

Normally I wouldn't consider a .893  save % credible goaltending, but considering our poor team defense, the injuries to key defenders this season, our lack of D depth, and the fact that we lead the NHL in High Danger Chances allowed, our goaltenders deserve some leeway.  FYI league average goaltending save % is .899.

So while I'm not a huge fan of UPL and he has had some majorly terrible performances, he has been decent to good to very good the majority of games he has started this season.

No, he hasn't. He's been a ball of meh.

15 of 32 does not a majority make. 

[PromoTheRobot]

Matthew Fairburn's latest in the Athletic.

https://theathletic.com/4379056/2023/04/09/sabres-gm-kevyn-adams-playoff-expectations?source=user-shared-article

[Zamboni]

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Matthew Fairburn's latest in the Athletic.

https://theathletic.com/4379056/2023/04/09/sabres-gm-kevyn-adams-playoff-expectations?source=user-shared-article

Like every time someone posts something from the Athletic… could someone post some of the highlights from this article for those of us (the majority) who don’t pay for the Athletic. 
Thank you very much.

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, Zamboni said:

Like every time someone posts something from the Athletic… could someone post some of the highlights from this article for those of us (the majority) who don’t pay for the Athletic. 
Thank you very much.

As you wish...

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I came away from that (introduction) press conference pessimistic about the future of the local hockey team. Adams took over a barren hockey operations department, and questions about how much the owners would spend made the future uncertain.  It wasn’t that I didn’t think Adams, specifically, could handle the job. It’s that I wasn’t sure there was anyone who could succeed in turning the franchise around under the circumstances he walked into. 

Quote

That was just two years ago. Following that season, Sam Reinhart, Rasmus Ristolainen and Jack Eichel were all at various stages of discontent. Adams spoke about prioritizing players who want to be in Buffalo, and there were questions about whether any of those three players fit that description. Adams, a first-time general manager who had just weathered a disastrous first season, had three disgruntled veterans, including a franchise cornerstone. Throw in that Eichel’s issues stemmed from a disagreement over how to handle his injury, and Adams had a complicated situation to deal with.

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With those four moves, Adams altered the future of the franchise. He navigated a messy and public dispute with Eichel, handled it with necessary grace and firmness and got proper value in return. You could argue he won what seemed like an unwinnable trade. The Reinhart and Ristolainen trades both look like potential wins, too.

“I think he did a really good job of observing and figuring out what was going on,” Sabres captain Kyle Okposo said. “He was thrust into a very difficult situation to start. He got through that and handled that extremely well. Through how he handled that caused the team to have faith in him and how he was going to lead us going forward. I think he hasn’t looked back. He has a vision for how he wants us to play and how he wants this built and he sticks to that.”

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Adams has made his mistakes, but he’s also shown an ability to evaluate himself and those around him and course correct. He might have been slow to fire Krueger, but he did it and identified Granato as a replacement. That looks shrewd two years later. The stripped-down hockey operations department he took over has been rebuilt. He hired a sharp analytics crew led by Sam Ventura and a deep amateur scouting staff led by Jerry Forton. This wasn’t an overnight fix, and it’s not one many people expected.

“You have to have a chip on your shoulder mentality coming into a situation like he was,” Alex Tuch said. “He had to make some big decisions that were obviously franchise-changing decisions. It’s never easy. It’s a lot of stress. I bet he’s had a lot of sleepless nights figuring out what to do in certain situations. But I think he’s proud of what he’s done in here and we really focus on trying to keep the outside noise to the outside and focusing on us in this locker room and in this building as an organization. It shows how much hard work and dedication he’s put into this team. He’s not backing down from anybody. He’s also had a mindset and plan in place and stuck to it. He hasn’t wavered or tried to fast-track anything. He’s stayed patient and stayed diligent. It’s paying off. We’re going to try to make sure he keeps looking good.”

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“He cares about the team and about the city of Buffalo,” Tuch said. “Through and through, he bleeds blue and gold. That was something I noticed right away. He really truly cares. Each and everything he does, he does it at 100 percent. He definitely supports us. He’s not afraid to show it.”

Okposo sees it in the way Adams is always around. He always stops in the hallway to chat with players. He’ll sit down and eat breakfast with players in the cafeteria. He showed it the other night when he wrapped rookie goalie Devon Levi in a hug as he was coming off the ice and told him he was proud of him. In his press conference at the trade deadline, he got choked up talking about the players and said, “I know what it takes to win in this league and I know we have it.”

“He doesn’t try to be anybody he’s not,” Okposo said.

 

[sabrefanday1]

Next season I think we go with Levi and Comrie as backup and get UPL down to Rocehster to work on his rebound control and positioning for a year. Then he can backup Levi after next year and al is good in Sabreland (when KA brings in a nice physcial d-man and also physical vet forward who can fight preferably)

[Crusader1969]

9 minutes ago, sabrefanday1 said:

Next season I think we go with Levi and Comrie as backup and get UPL down to Rocehster to work on his rebound control and positioning for a year. Then he can backup Levi after next year and al is good in Sabreland (when KA brings in a nice physcial d-man and also physical vet forward who can fight preferably)

In a perfect world this would work but UPL isnt waiver exempt. 

really not sure how they will handle him.  
 

I have to think trade or Levi / UPL tandem 

 

[Doohicksie]

On 4/4/2023 at 2:14 PM, GASabresIUFAN said:

All the great platitudes, such as "building with players that want to be here," are meaningless unless those players are actually good at hockey.

On the other hand, if a player who's actually good at hockey "doesn't want to be here" and is a distraction in the locker room, then his talent is meaningless.  (See Jack Eichel)

[Doohicksie]

5 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Quote

“I think he did a really good job of observing and figuring out what was going on,” Sabres captain Kyle Okposo said.

I think the fact that he was with the team prior to his promotion to GM really helped Kevyn.  After he was hired he already knew what was going on; there wasn't any figuring out.  I think on Day One his plan was to jettison Risto, Reino and Eichel, and fire Ralph, but it took him a while to convince the Pegulas it was the right course of action. 

Bringing in Hall and Staal and whatnot was an honest attempt by him to go in the direction the Pegulas wanted but the Eichel injury ultimately doomed that effort and only made it more obvious that his plan was better than the Pegulas' misguided desire to stay loyal to Eichel and try to build around him.

[PromoTheRobot]

24 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

I think the fact that he was with the team prior to his promotion to GM really helped Kevyn.  After he was hired he already knew what was going on; there wasn't any figuring out.  I think on Day One his plan was to jettison Risto, Reino and Eichel, and fire Ralph, but it took him a while to convince the Pegulas it was the right course of action. 

Bringing in Hall and Staal and whatnot was an honest attempt by him to go in the direction the Pegulas wanted but the Eichel injury ultimately doomed that effort and only made it more obvious that his plan was better than the Pegulas' misguided desire to stay loyal to Eichel and try to build around him.

Don't forget Ralph. Hall was a guy he had a history with.

[Doohicksie]

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Don't forget Ralph. Hall was a guy he had a history with.

I realize that. 

I think at the start of his first year on the job, Kevyn was told by ownership that it was his job to take the team to the playoffs ASAP, with a desire to keep Krueger and build around Eichel.  Given those instructions, Kevyn worked with Krueger to bring in the players Krueger felt would best work with Eichel.

Had Eichel not had injury problems things might have worked out differently.  My personal opinion is that would have played out the same, just taken longer to get there.  But maybe not.  Maybe they would have made the playoffs and built from there.

I think Kevyn knew what kind of a team he wanted to build and Eichel was not part of it, but that he made an honest effort to work within the constraints imposed by ownership.  I also suspect he advised them about his misgivings but obeyed his bosses' wishes.  When things went off the rails, ownership acquiesced and agreed to go his way.  This is where his long term rapport and his strong personal skills paid off.  A Tim Murray couldn't have navigated his way through this situation, but Kevyn was well-suited to manage his bosses and steer them the way he wanted to go.

XGMTM and JBott were both hockey first guys and I think they both kind of discounted the hockey sense of the Pegulas.  I suspect their communications with ownership was primarily surface level and they didn't really welcome involvement from the owners.  But Kevyn's people skills means that he includes the ownership in important decisions, not just on a perfunctory basis but actually spending the time to do the two-way communications to understand where Terry's coming from and invests the time to explain things to him to get not only buy-in, but true understanding to the point that it's a joint decision.  Kevyn is not an autocrat, he's a consensus builder.

[SabresBillsFan]

I want the Czech mafia on this team next season. I’ve seen enough of Okposo.

[Zamboni]

Updated OP … let me know if I forgot something 👍🏼

[PerreaultForever]

On 4/9/2023 at 7:54 PM, Doohickie said:

I realize that. 

I think at the start of his first year on the job, Kevyn was told by ownership that it was his job to take the team to the playoffs ASAP, with a desire to keep Krueger and build around Eichel.  Given those instructions, Kevyn worked with Krueger to bring in the players Krueger felt would best work with Eichel.

Had Eichel not had injury problems things might have worked out differently.  My personal opinion is that would have played out the same, just taken longer to get there.  But maybe not.  Maybe they would have made the playoffs and built from there.

I think Kevyn knew what kind of a team he wanted to build and Eichel was not part of it, but that he made an honest effort to work within the constraints imposed by ownership.  I also suspect he advised them about his misgivings but obeyed his bosses' wishes.  When things went off the rails, ownership acquiesced and agreed to go his way.  This is where his long term rapport and his strong personal skills paid off.  A Tim Murray couldn't have navigated his way through this situation, but Kevyn was well-suited to manage his bosses and steer them the way he wanted to go.

XGMTM and JBott were both hockey first guys and I think they both kind of discounted the hockey sense of the Pegulas.  I suspect their communications with ownership was primarily surface level and they didn't really welcome involvement from the owners.  But Kevyn's people skills means that he includes the ownership in important decisions, not just on a perfunctory basis but actually spending the time to do the two-way communications to understand where Terry's coming from and invests the time to explain things to him to get not only buy-in, but true understanding to the point that it's a joint decision.  Kevyn is not an autocrat, he's a consensus builder.

Wait, what? I don't think this is true at all. Eichel wanted out, and I would guess that when he let it be known he wanted out Terry felt betrayed and said well F him then, trade him. Either that or he just gave up on the old crew and told Kevyn to start over. That's it. Occam's Razor. 

[Zamboni]

Updated OP … let me know if I forgot something 👍🏼

[LGR4GM]

On 5/3/2023 at 11:25 PM, PerreaultForever said:

Wait, what? I don't think this is true at all. Eichel wanted out, and I would guess that when he let it be known he wanted out Terry felt betrayed and said well F him then, trade him. Either that or he just gave up on the old crew and told Kevyn to start over. That's it. Occam's Razor. 

Actually Occam's Razor would posit that Adams wanted to move on from Eichel and the reason it didn't happen was Terry. That explains the Hall signing and the one more swing. It is also why I don't think Adams was fully in charge yet as all of that stank of Krueger and Terry. Already that offseason there was rumors swirling that Eichel might want out and also that Adams was not opposed to moving him. Obviously that didn't happen and the team under Barf Krueger bottomed out. Once that happened, Adams went to Terry and said "we need to rebuild and we need to do it while we have these assets that I can turn into other stuff." Terry agreed and Adams started moving out Risto, Sam, and finally Jack. 

If Terry felt betrayed and just wanted the deal done, Adams would never have been able to sit and wait for almost 7 months. 

[PerreaultForever]

4 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Actually Occam's Razor would posit that Adams wanted to move on from Eichel and the reason it didn't happen was Terry. That explains the Hall signing and the one more swing. It is also why I don't think Adams was fully in charge yet as all of that stank of Krueger and Terry. Already that offseason there was rumors swirling that Eichel might want out and also that Adams was not opposed to moving him. Obviously that didn't happen and the team under Barf Krueger bottomed out. Once that happened, Adams went to Terry and said "we need to rebuild and we need to do it while we have these assets that I can turn into other stuff." Terry agreed and Adams started moving out Risto, Sam, and finally Jack. 

If Terry felt betrayed and just wanted the deal done, Adams would never have been able to sit and wait for almost 7 months. 

Well that's possible as well, but you're going back a year earlier than I was. I think it's safe to say Adams was hired by Terry since they already had a relationship and initially bringing in Hall was a move to try and create a top duo but you have to remember that Hall wasn't getting the money he wanted and took the one year deal as a result. I'm sure both sides felt they could do well with that combo but the one year deal may already have been seen by KA and Terry as a one last shot for the status quo.

idk, the injury obviously factored in, relationships soured, Jack wanted out. The early rumours of that were obviously all true. Thus the tear down had to happen and did. Draft success will determine how well the rebuild goes as it seems free agency won't be the route for the most part. 

[Taro T]

5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Well that's possible as well, but you're going back a year earlier than I was. I think it's safe to say Adams was hired by Terry since they already had a relationship and initially bringing in Hall was a move to try and create a top duo but you have to remember that Hall wasn't getting the money he wanted and took the one year deal as a result. I'm sure both sides felt they could do well with that combo but the one year deal may already have been seen by KA and Terry as a one last shot for the status quo.

idk, the injury obviously factored in, relationships soured, Jack wanted out. The early rumours of that were obviously all true. Thus the tear down had to happen and did. Draft success will determine how well the rebuild goes as it seems free agency won't be the route for the most part. 

Really thought that when he signed Hall indicated that he would've been good with a longer term contract but that Adams only offered the 1 year deal.  (Which fit in very well with the notion that the Pegulas didn't want to have any LT contracts handed out coming out of Covid due to so much uncertainty with revenues (not just with the Sabres but also the crowdless Bills and their other holdings).  It also fit in well with the idea that Adams believed keeping the band together and taking 1 more kick at the can was the wrong way to proceed; but except for not upgrading the goaltending, he did make what seemed to be a very good faith effort to give that a chance to succeed if it were going to do so.)

[Doohicksie]

15 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Actually Occam's Razor would posit that Adams wanted to move on from Eichel and the reason it didn't happen was Terry. That explains the Hall signing and the one more swing. It is also why I don't think Adams was fully in charge yet as all of that stank of Krueger and Terry. Already that offseason there was rumors swirling that Eichel might want out and also that Adams was not opposed to moving him. Obviously that didn't happen and the team under Barf Krueger bottomed out. Once that happened, Adams went to Terry and said "we need to rebuild and we need to do it while we have these assets that I can turn into other stuff." Terry agreed and Adams started moving out Risto, Sam, and finally Jack. 

If Terry felt betrayed and just wanted the deal done, Adams would never have been able to sit and wait for almost 7 months. 

Further supporting the notion that Kevyn wanted to blow it all up right from the start was that he extended Reino for only one year.  To me that was the first tangible indication that Kevyn wanted to move the Eichel era core out for new assets.

[Doohicksie]

5 hours ago, Taro T said:

he did make what seemed to be a very good faith effort to give that a chance to succeed if it were going to do so.

I agree with that take.  Even though Kevyn's plan was to move on from the tank fruit, he was instructed in his first offseason as GM to make it work with Eichel.  I think we all thought the moves to bring in Hall and Staal and even Lazar & Eakin were sound hockey moves and also (especially with Hall) Kevyn was bringing in the players that Krueger wanted to coach. 

Terry named him GM; I suspect Kevyn laid out his grand plan to turn the roster over to Terry but Terry felt the team was close to being a playoff team and with the infusion of the right veteran players they could get there.  It might have worked too if Jack didn't have the problems with his neck.

But when the wheels did fall off, Kevyn got the nod from Terry to carry out his plan.

It might not be 100% how it went down, but what we saw seems to fit with that sequence of events.

[JohnC]

17 hours ago, Taro T said:

Really thought that when he signed Hall indicated that he would've been good with a longer term contract but that Adams only offered the 1 year deal.  (Which fit in very well with the notion that the Pegulas didn't want to have any LT contracts handed out coming out of Covid due to so much uncertainty with revenues (not just with the Sabres but also the crowdless Bills and their other holdings).  It also fit in well with the idea that Adams believed keeping the band together and taking 1 more kick at the can was the wrong way to proceed; but except for not upgrading the goaltending, he did make what seemed to be a very good faith effort to give that a chance to succeed if it were going to do so.)

It really wasn't in KA's or Hall's interest to sign a longer-term deal. As you point out, KA was reluctant to give longer term deals because he had in mind of remaking this roster. So he didn't want to get stuck with players that he might not have a longer term interest in. And as @PerreaultForever points out that Hall wanted to restore his player credibility that would have made him more marketable when he became a free agent. 

I've stated this before, that it's my opinion that KA wanted from the start to remake this roster with players that he felt were committed to process of rebuilding the roster. He knew which players would be invested in that challenging journey and which would not. However, when he took over, he didn't have the consent from the owner to implement his rebuilding plan. Krueger at that time had a lot of authority. And he wanted to bring in players to help support Jack and give this team a better chance to win right away. 

In my view KA, was wise enough to be strategically patient and let the Krueger and owner plan to take the short-term route to be competitive as soon as possible play out. Needless to say, it didn't work out. And it was at this point that KA got the owner's consent to implement his plan. It was at this point where he adroitly started to make deals to utilize the trade assets he had and work with the assets that he wanted to keep. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by JohnC

[PerreaultForever]

17 hours ago, Taro T said:

Really thought that when he signed Hall indicated that he would've been good with a longer term contract but that Adams only offered the 1 year deal.  (Which fit in very well with the notion that the Pegulas didn't want to have any LT contracts handed out coming out of Covid due to so much uncertainty with revenues (not just with the Sabres but also the crowdless Bills and their other holdings).  It also fit in well with the idea that Adams believed keeping the band together and taking 1 more kick at the can was the wrong way to proceed; but except for not upgrading the goaltending, he did make what seemed to be a very good faith effort to give that a chance to succeed if it were going to do so.)

idk. You're saying Adams only offered 1 year and Hall would have taken more. Maybe. In any event glad we didn't sign him for more at that money, that would have really sunk us. 

[PromoTheRobot]

Add this to the list: He got Hoe Cecconi for a player who wound up going back to Sweden.

[Zamboni]

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Add this to the list: He got Hoe Cecconi for a player who wound up going back to Sweden.

That transaction is on the list Dec. 15 2022 👍🏼