Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) – Buffalo Sabres and the NHL are just over a week away from the NHL Draft. On Thursday, GM Kevyn Adams and assistant GM Jerry Forton spoke about different topics.
I’ve been talking since January about how the Sabres could help themselves by buying out Jeff Skinner. As soon as the Stanley Cup is presented, the buyout window starts 48 hours later and lasts until 5:00, June 30. Of course Adams wasn’t going to go into details with their decision on Skinner, but he did say,
“I know there are rumors out there and rumblings on different scenarios, so what I can tell you is from the day our season ended after my conversations with Terry (Pegula) and where we go from here, every single thing we’re doing this off-season we ask the question, does this help our team get better? And we’ve made a lot of decisions up to this point on where we sit today with that in mind, so nothing is off the table, but that’s as far as I go with the specifics.”
Adams holds private meetings with all the players after the season and with Skinner he said,
“With Jeff at the end of the season I thought there was true honesty back and forth from myself and him and I think it’s safe to say that I have a lot of respect for Jeff and he’s clearly an elite offensive player in this league, so I’ll keep the conversations private, but I’ve certainly had dialog in talking in general about his game and our team.”
Buffalo holds the 11 th overall pick in next week’s draft and he talked about it being a valuable asset. As far as trading that asset he said,
“Where are you as an organization, what are your needs? Where’s your prospect pool because if you’re really thin, and you’re sitting at pick 11, that makes it more challenging in making a move, so if you have a deep prospect pool which I believe we do, maybe you’re more open to moving that pick and you have to weigh is it good enough to make that decision.”
Adams has never been willing to trade his first-round pick, but now he is and he said,
“I’ve told every team in the league that we are wide open to considering moving pick 11, we’d consider prospects if we think it’s going to help our team and we’re having those conversations right now.
“I’ve talked to every team around us about what we’re open to and we’d even look to move up and we’re very open to moving back depending how the draft slides.”
Adams has had the same plan since he was hired and it was to build a large, good pool of prospects and he’s done that. He said now’s the time to shift gears,
“I’ve said to a number of GMs, we’ve been methodical and disciplined and had a plan in place going back three plus years on how we were going to build this franchise up and we’ve stuck to our plan, but I think we’ve moved into another phase now that we have to be really open in looking to make these types of decisions, but you still have to have the right opportunity to make them.”
After the NHL Trade Deadline in March, Adams talked about how it was difficult again to get players to waive their no-trade clauses to Buffalo. Buffalo’s season was opposite of what many expected, but now the head coach is Lindy Ruff and it seems like things are changing for the better in terms of players willing to come to Buffalo,
“Lindy has a lot of credibility and respect in this league from players, agents, other general managers and that’s a great thing for us," Adams said. "So I have had conversations where that exact thing has come up and the players through the teams said that’s certainly a coach that their guy would play for.”
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is a restricted free agent and talks with Adams are well on their way. Adams said,
“Those conversations started maybe in March or so and they’ve been productive and I like to make sure we’re aligned on does the player want to be here, do they believe in what we’re doing and ‘UPL’ made it very clear that he loves this team, he loves the city, he wants to be here, we’re excited about him.
“We continued having conversations last week and we’ll have more in Vegas.”
The Sabres now have two assistant general managers in Jerry Forton and Mark Jakubowski and one associate GM in Jason Karmanos. Adams talked about all three and their responsibilities,
“Jerry is still going to day-to-day oversee the amateur scouting department and he’ll still serve in the role of director of amateur scouting, and he’ll add the pro into his day-to-day and will sit in more on management meetings and roster discussions.
“I think Jeremiah Crowe has done an excellent job in the pro, but I also think just Jerry’s experience and knowledge of the players will help in that area.
“With Mark Jakubowski, his role doesn’t change at all, he does the CBA and contract negotiations, salary cap, all those things and internal with the staff contracts and then Jason Karmanos will continue to be general manager of Rochester, oversee the player development and be involved in every scouting meeting we have and he watches amateur, watches pro, maintains a close eye on where we are on the roster depth charts with different positions.”
Starting July 1, Adams can begin talks on a new contract with Jack Quinn, Bo Byram, Devon Levi and JJ Peterka. Adams has done that in the past and there are some that believe he’s been burned by that. Of course it’s too early to make that decision, but he did say he doesn’t anticipate starting talks with them right now, but you never know if that could change.
Photo credit Losi & Gangi 
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