New General Manager Jarmo Kekäläinen starts the rebuild of the franchise in the front office
Earlier today the Buffalo Sabres announced that Associate General Manager Jason Karmanos had been let go after over four years in the position. Karmanos was the GM at the Rochester Americans in that role, and led the Amerks into the playoffs in every one of those seasons, and is widely seen as a next GM in the big league.
This move came five days after Kevyn Adams was let go from the Sabres GM role with senior advisor Jarmo Kekäläinen taking over, and it’s now looking like he is reshaping the Buffalo front office in his vision. There has been no word yet on the futures of the two assistant general managers, Mark Jakubowski and Jerry Forton.
Now we’re hearing that his replacement has already been identified and will be on his way. Los Angeles Kings Associate GM Marc Bergevin will be leaving the palm trees of California immediately to catch some lake effect snow and New York state taxes.
Bergevin, who guided the Canadiens to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final and later advised the Kings during their playoff runs, fills the associate general manager spot vacated by Karmanos. He has a reputation for being aggressive, much like Kekäläinen. The 60-year-old former defenseman has a solid resume of experience, even while making some contentious decisions in his time as well. He as been General Manager, Assistant General Manager and Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations at the Montreal Canadiens, was the senior advisor at the Kings (like Kekäläinen in Buffalo) before becoming the Associate GM, and started off as Scout and then Director of Player Personnel at the Chicago Blackhawks who drafted him 59th overall in 1983.
As a defenseman he featured 1,191 times for eight different teams and is also employed by Hockey Canada as the GM of Team Canada for the 2025 Spengler Cup which begins on Friday.
It is certainly interesting to Sabres fans that GMJK seems to have license to do that from owner, CEO and club president Terry Pegula who appears frequently to be micromanaging the club’s front office.
For long this suffering fanbase has sought an experienced President of Hockey Operations to oversee the running of the franchise and the direction it’s headed in, with a General Manager under him that focuses solely on the on-ice product. After all, the franchise is in the throes of a record 14-year postseason drought, often eliminated from contention before the adjacent Lake Erie freezes over.
Now it appears that in lieu of a POHO, Jarmo is putting his stamp on things early with the club’s leadership. There is certainly some medium-to-long-term vision here as well, as we could well see Kekäläinen end up in the POHO role with Bergevin eventually taking over as GM.
There are two big pending GM-required decisions coming up on their combined radar – Alex Tuch’s extension and/or trade, and truncating the three-headed goaltending monster to two.
Per Pierre LeBrun, Kekäläinen has also asked for permission from the Columbus Blue Jackets organization (where he was last the GM) to speak to Assistant General Manager Josh Flynn.
Flynn was named assistant general manager for the Blue Jackets in 2019 after previously serving as the director of hockey administration. From the Columbus site – “He is responsible for assisting in all facets of the hockey operations department, including salary cap management, contract negotiations and research, salary arbitration, statistical research and strategic planning, and is the club’s liaison to the National Hockey League on matters pertaining to the NHL-NHLPA collective bargaining agreement.“
Early on Sunday morning the Sabres organization confirmed the addition of both Bergevin and Flynn to the organization.