Paul Hamilton: Will Kevyn Adams come back for a sixth season as GM Sabers? It all depends on what Terry Pegula wants.
Buffalo, NY – At the press conference on Saturday at the end of the season, the director general of Buffalo Sabers, Kevyn Adams, would not say if he had received assurances from Terry Pegula that he will be back as GM des Sabers.
Adams said he still had to go to southern Florida to meet the owner. Adams had more than enough time during the five seasons, he was managing director to improve this team, but in each of the last three seasons, they worsened.
Winning is not the most important thing for Pegula, it is heard, which is why the Hockey Department is full of people who have never done their job before and who are not qualified to do them.
Adams opens the way with this while Kim Pegula began to prepare Adams for work by giving him different jobs with the organization to prepare him to be the Director General of Sabers. The plan was a failure.
Adams had to learn at work by making mistakes. He identified the bad nucleus group, paid them a lot of money with contracts which, in some cases, are regretted.
He did a really poor job to develop some of the good young talents he has. Jiri Kulich was developed in the right way. Kulich has played 140 games with the Rochester Americans and he is now there to join their eliminatory race.
Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Dylan Cozens and Zach Benson did not spend time in the AHL. In the case of Benson, he could not because of his age. I think that young players must be in Rochester to learn to play in the right direction, but Adams did not have the experience of knowing what is good for young players, so Mattias Samuelsson had only 45 games with minors, Henri Jokiharju had 30 AHL games, JJ Peterka obtained 80 games, Jack Quinn 70, Peyton Krebs 35 and Jacob Bryson 76.
It is good to see that Isak Rosen has spent more than 200 games in Rochester. Tyson Kozak has 145 games with the Amerks. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen managed 23 games in the ECHL and 69 games in the Amerks net.
Adams made a huge mistake by putting the goalkeeper’s work from Devon Levi Les Sabers no but twice, without the appropriate development. Levi trampled and Adams finally realized last season that it would be better for him to play Rochester.
Including the playoffs, Levi played 31 games in 2023-24 with the Amerks, and this season, he participated in 42 games for Rochester with playoffs. Even if Luukkonen won the job with his game, he had to start the season this year alternating with Levi because it was goalkeeper Adams wants to be the Sabers No. 1. He did not win these games at the start of the season, they were given to him. When he showed that he was not ready, he finally went to Rochester. In these matches at the start of the season, Levi was 1-2-0 with 3.79 goals against and a percentage of stops of 0.874.
It was not bad. Adams did a good job to bring Jason Zucker and James Reimer, both were precious on and out of the ice.
Buffalo needed a two -way center that could gain playing and was speed. Ryan McLeod adapted that Bill and McLeod have exceeded expectations marking 20 goals while being this good double -way player.
Bo byram was a good business for Casey Mitelstadt. Obtaining Alex Tuch and a n ° 1 choice in Jack Eichel’s trade which became Noah Ostlund was a good deal. They also obtained Krebs which Vegas took 17th in the general classification in 2019. He had a good second half of the season, and Ruff loves him as a player.
Pegula knows that he must make changes somewhere. Fans are already everywhere on him and Adams, and the status quo will not go well.
Expect changes in coach staff, I would not be shocked if there are changes in the sports performance department. Professional screening must have someone with experience in there.
We are still talking about players who win what they get. There is no way that Kevyn Adams won a sixth year as director general of Buffalo Sabers, but it all depends on Terry Pegula.
Does he want to win? Or does he want to be heard?
