With Bowen Byram signed, has Kevyn Adams done enough to improve Sabres?
It appears the bulk of Buffalo's offseason work is done, but Adams still has a chance to do more to this roster.
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It’s still only mid-July. The Buffalo Sabres don’t start training camp for another two months. Everything this time of year comes with the caveat that more moves could be coming. The roster can still change.
But after the Sabres signed defenseman Bowen Byram to a two-year contract worth $6.25 million per year on Monday night, it appears general manager Kevyn Adams has done the bulk of his offseason work. Here is a rundown of what Adams has done to this point in his sixth offseason as the general manager of a team that has missed the playoffs 14 years in a row and is coming off a 79-point season.
Added
Defenseman Michael Kesselring
Winger Josh Doan
Goalie Alex Lyon
Center/winger Justin Danforth
Defenseman Conor Timmins
Defenseman Zac Jones
Subtracted
Winger JJ Peterka
Goalie James Reimer
Defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker
Defenseman Connor Clifton
Center/winger Sam Lafferty
Re-signed
Defenseman Bowen Byram
Center Ryan McLeod
Winger Jack Quinn
Off the ice, the Sabres changed strength and conditioning coaches, bringing in Brian Gallivan from USA Hockey. They also added Eric Staal as a special assistant to the general manager and Jarmo Kekäläinen as a senior adviser to the general manager. No other changes were made to the front office or coaching staff. Buffalo’s assistant coaches have all been with the organization for at least four years.
Without any other moves, the Sabres will have somewhere between $4 million and $5 million in cap space after they sign restricted free agents Conor Timmins and Devon Levi. Free agency is mostly picked over. Picks and prospects could be used in a trade to add another impact player, but there’s a real chance this is mostly the roster the Sabres will take into Adams’ sixth season as general manager.
That leaves me with two big questions. The first is whether Adams did enough, something we will continue to unpack as the team takes the ice and the season unfolds. But the other question hanging over this offseason is what exactly Adams’ plan was coming into the summer.
I can see the logic in some of the offseason moves. Trading Peterka, a disgruntled, one-dimensional winger, for a top-four, right-handed defenseman and winger who will, at the very least, be a reliable, two-way third-liner has a chance to make the team better. But trading Peterka was never part of Adams’ grand vision. Adams entered the offseason wanting to extend him, only to realize the feeling wasn’t mutual. So the biggest move the Sabres made this summer was one driven by a 23-year-old who no longer wanted to be in Buffalo.
Outside of that, Adams has only executed minor moves. Lyon should be a useful backup goalie who might even push Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for playing time. Danforth and Timmins are useful depth additions, but that’s a fourth-liner and a bottom-pair defenseman.
In speaking about the offseason, Adams has said he wanted the Sabres to be better defensively and be a harder team to play against. That makes sense after the Sabres scored the fourth-most five-on-five goals in the league last season and allowed the sixth-most five-on-five goals in the league. Kesselring, Doan, Danforth and Timmins should all help the Sabres be a more consistent defensive team. Retaining Byram helps in that regard, too. He and Rasmus Dahlin were an excellent pair last season. With better goaltending, either via Lyon or a Luukkonen bounce-back, the Sabres should be able to keep the puck out of the net better than they did a year ago.
But the Sabres also lost 27 goals from Peterka. The plan seems to be relying on a combination of Josh Norris staying healthy, Jack Quinn bouncing back and Zach Benson and Jiri Kulich taking another step. All of that combined with Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch and Dahlin staying healthy and repeating their stellar performances from last season might be enough to get the Sabres from 79 points to the 90-something points necessary to make the Eastern Conference playoffs.
There’s a lot of hope baked into that strategy. Norris hasn’t played a full season since 2020-21. Quinn looked like a shell of himself at times last season. Benson and Kulich look like future stars, but will they be able to start producing like that at 20 and 21 years old?
The Sabres are also hoping Owen Power’s injury doesn’t impact his ability to take another step forward this season and that Kesselring will be the long-awaited proper partner for Power. Every team in the NHL deals with degrees of uncertainty when building a roster, but the Sabres seem to have more of it than most teams. Jason Zucker’s end-of-season words about hope as a strategy might be ringing in your head right now.
It’s not that this team can’t make the playoffs as constructed. I do think Doan and Kesselring will have a major positive influence on the culture in the locker room and the overall team defense on the ice. The same goes for Danforth and Timmins. I understand the team’s optimism when it comes to players like Benson and Kulich. And there’s no doubt that a thin free-agent class and the ever-present obstacle of no-trade clauses impact Adams’ ability to take every big swing that’s available to other general managers.
But this isn’t only about this summer. This roster reflects Adams’ body of work. He didn’t proactively add to the 2022-23 team that got 91 points, instead banking on internal development. He struck out trying to get Patrick Kane, and the only new forward on that team was a then-18-year-old Benson. Last summer, adding Ryan McLeod and Zucker worked out. Adams also revamped Buffalo’s fourth line, and two of the three players he brought in are already gone. The coaching change he made a year ago didn’t pay immediate dividends either. Adams left more than $6 million in salary-cap space unspent and said it was to plan for the team’s upcoming restricted free agents. But Peterka is gone, Quinn didn’t earn a long-term deal, and Byram signed a two-year deal. McLeod earned another contract, but otherwise, the saved cap space was for nought.
Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about this team being ready to win. In 2023, Adams said the window was open. Then, 2024-25 was a “win-now” team. The plan hasn’t always reflected the urgency of those words. There’s still the time, cap space and assets for Adams to do more to this roster. But is that part of the plan, or does he think he’s done enough?