The news recently broke that head coach Lindy Ruff will be back behind the bench in 2025-26. While the wisdom of his return may be debatable, the idea of another year with GM Kevyn Adams running the franchise is intolerable. Adams had almost five years to help the Blue and Gold make it to the postseason and failed spectacularly.
The Sabres came close to ending their playoff drought in 2022-23, finishing with 91 points, just one short. Fans could be forgiven for believing the Blue and Gold would finally reach the playoffs the following season, but Buffalo regressed, ending the year with 84 points. With one regular season game remaining as of this writing, the Sabres can close out 2024-25 with a maximum of 79 points.
The team is going backward, not forward. Long-suffering fans have spent five seasons “trusting the process”, an exercise that now looks as futile as boarding an airplane with no wings and hoping it somehow manages to take off. No sane observer can understand how the general manager of a hockey team that does progressively worse each season deserves yet another chance to prove detractors wrong.
When the Sabres blew a four-goal lead against the Colorado Avalanche on Dec. 3, 2024, Adams held a press conference. Rather than reassuring unhappy fans, he sparred with the media, making excuses and putting on a petulant, defensive performance. The team responded by losing nine more matchups as part of a 13-game losing streak that put Buffalo out of playoff contention for another year.
More recently, Buffalo’s GM traded center Dylan Cozens and defenseman Dennis Gilbert to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for forward Josh Norris and blueliner Jacob Bernard-Docker. The Sens may have come out on the better end of that deal, as Cozens has a current 4-9-13 record with Ottawa, while Norris’ stats are 1-1-2 in just 3 contests so far. That move, along with trading Casey Mittelstadt for Bowen Byram, who may be gone next year, makes Adams look like someone who plays checkers while rival NHL GMs play chess.
Sabres’ owner Terry Pegula is a well-meaning, kind-hearted man who often keeps people around because he hates to fire them. However, Adams has run the Blue and Gold longer than Rex Ryan coached the Bills, with similar disastrous results. Pegula needs to take a page out of that book and cut Adams loose, sooner rather than later.