Thus, most, if not all of the Sabres took a major step forward in 2025-26. So now that TheHockeyNews.com is handing out grades for Buffalo players and the team’s coach and GM – starting today with GM Jarmo Kekalainen – those grades are largely going to reflect the Sabres’ strong performance. Buffalo ultimately didn’t capitalize on their mostly-superb regular-season by getting to the Eastern final and beyond, but in the macro picture, 31 of 32 teams go home disappointed every year. So the Sabres need to leave any disappointment behind as they try building on what they produced last year.

With that said, let’s get the grading process started at the top. Here’s our first grade of the off-season:

Position: GM

Grade: A-

The Skinny: Kekalainen didn’t get the GM job until December 15, taking over for fired predecessor Kevyn Adams. But almost immediately, the Sabres went on a roll, posting 10 straight wins leading up to the start of the calendar year 2025. And from that point on, Buffalo went 29-9-5 to finish the year as the East’s second-best team.

Kekalainen could’ve came in as GM and smashed the panic button, and nobody would’ve blamed him. But the Sabres found a way to turn things around and become one of the league’s most dominant teams, and Kekalainen’s patience was rewarded. Buffalo’s players and coach Lindy Ruff bounced back from their poor start, and now, the Sabres are in a position where the grand majority of their younger players are under contract beyond this coming year.

Letting star player Alex Tuch leave via a sign-and-trade with the Washington Capitals certainly is a public relations loss for Kekalainen. But if Kekalainen had agreed to pay Tuch the $10.5-million he got from the Capitals, that would’ve completely wiped out all of the Sabres’ salary cap space. Instead, Kekalainen held onto his cap space, and Buffalo now has $5.1-million in cap space to use to address any issue that arises during the season.

Kekalainen also traded defenseman Bowen Byram and Jordan Greenway to the Chicago Blackhawks for the fourth-overall draft pick, which they used on WHL star defenseman Daxon Rudolph. The Sabres added an important young player in Rudolph, and they moved off of Greenway’s contract. So while Byram was a very useful player, that trade was a significant win for Kekalainen.

Kekalainen has also hired former Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Rangers executive and former NHL goalie John Davidson as a senior adviser. That might be Kekalainen rewarding an old friend he can trust, but there is no salary cap for management figures, so this development really doesn’t move the needle right away for the Sabres one way or another.

Ultimately, the Sabres took an obvious step forward this past season, and Kekalainen deserves an excellent grade for his decisions. He put down the scalpel when it came to making huge roster decisions, and he wasn’t afraid to let Tuch leave and pivot in another direction. Kekalainen also traded former goalie-of-the-future Devon Levi to the Edmonton Oilers this summer, and that’s a move that eventually could come back to haunt him.

Kekalainen doesn’t quite get the A+ rating here. But by-and-large, he has done a bang-up job of steering the Sabres back into the playoffs after a full decade-and-a-half on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. Buffalo fans are no doubt grateful to Kekalainen for that. 

But there’s now pressure on Kekalainen to get the Sabres to the third round of the post-season and to the Stanley Cup final next year. His grade is going to suffer at this time next year if he can’t do that, but the Sabres’ 2025-26 performance has earned Kekalainen another year to try and stick the landing. And for the most part, Buffalo owners Terry and Kim Pegula must be pleased with what Kekalainen delivered this year.