Sabres enjoying 'great chemistry,' having fun during push for playoffs: GM

MANALAPAN, Fla. -- The Buffalo Sabres' stunning turnaround started around the time they named Jarmo Kekalainen general manager, but he won't take credit. 

The potential was already there. That's what drew him to Buffalo in the first place.

"The timing of it?" Kekalainen said with a laugh at the NHL GM meetings. "Who knows? The winning streak started before I took over."

Kekalainen joined the Sabres as a senior adviser May 30, 2025, after they missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the 14th straight season, the longest active drought in the NHL. He moved to Buffalo and watched every game to start this season -- if not live, then on video.

The Sabres were 11-14-4 on Dec. 8, last in the Eastern Conference and 30th in the NHL. They defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 in overtime on Dec. 9, then the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 on Dec. 11 and the Seattle Kraken 3-1 on Dec. 14.

Kekalainen replaced Kevyn Adams on Dec. 15. Buffalo extended its winning streak to 10 games afterward.

Since Dec. 9, the Sabres have gone 31-6-2, the best record in the NHL in that span (.821 points percentage), during which they're second in goals per game (3.77). Most importantly, they're first in goals-against per game (2.49). They are now first in the Atlantic Division and tied for third in the League.

What changed?

"The skill has always been there, but you can't win games just by always trying to score one more goal, letting in four or five, so I think that's been the big difference in our play," Kekalainen said. "And once you have a little bit of success in playing the right way, I think there's going to be always more buy-in, and that's what's happened. The snowball started rolling the right way, and it's been fun."

Kekalainen, who was GM of the Columbus Blue Jackets from Feb. 13, 2013, to Feb. 15, 2024, said he had only one message for the Sabres when he became their GM.

"Everybody's going to get evaluated not just on their skill but their character and work ethic and competitiveness," he said. "I felt like there were games that we got outworked and beaten by teams (that were) just working harder than us, and to me, that's always unacceptable. If you get beaten by a better team, so be it, but if you get beaten by a team that simply just works harder than you, then that's unacceptable. That's really the only thing that I talked about."

Is hard work the main reason for the defensive improvement?

"The message has always been the same from the coaching staff, so I don't think there was anything that changed," Kekalainen said. "Players, sometimes it takes them a little bit longer to figure it out, and sometimes it takes some of the success to figure out that this is actually working. It gets them to buy in more and gets them more committed to it. … 

"They believe that this is working now, and the way they play, there's great chemistry in the group, and they're having fun. I think that's the biggest ingredient. Confidence is a wonderful thing on an individual level and then collectively. When you have different individuals having success and they're having fun together, I think things can seem a lot of fun and sometimes even easy when it never is easy. Confidence is everything in pro sports."

The Sabres acquired forwards Sam Carrick and Tanner Pearson, and defensemen Luke Schenn and Logan Stanley, before the NHL Trade Deadline on March 6.

"They're good teammates, good people, good players," he said. "We acquired them for certain roles and when we get healthy here, it's going to be a tough internal competition to get on the ice for the games. I think it's really important that we acquired guys that are good teammates, that no matter what their role is on the team they have a good attitude. I think every team after the deadline is a bit like that, especially the ones that are gearing up for a longer spring.

"I think we have nine 'D' when they're all healthy, and we have five lines of forwards when they're healthy that could play on any given night, and some guys are going to be sitting out. So, the attitude and being a good teammate is going to get tested, but that's going to be really important for our whole group, that everybody is a good teammate."

Is Buffalo one of those teams gearing up for a longer spring?

Kekalainen doesn't want to look too far ahead. The Sabres visit the San Jose Sharks on Thursday (10 p.m. ET; NBCSCA, MSG-B).

"We've had this mantra the whole year basically: 'Let's do it one day at a time here,'" he said. "Coaches talk about, 'One more, just one more.' We've had some great winning streaks. They just say, 'Just one more.' One of my messages from the start has been, 'What can we do today to be better individually? What can we do better today to be a better team?' And that's the approach that we should take.

"We still have a big challenge ahead of us here in the last games to first make the playoffs. I don't want anybody to look at the standings and look further into the spring, so I won't talk about it."