Jarmo Kekäläinen joined the Sabres organization at the end of May 2025. Now one year later, fresh off a drought-breaking push into the second round after taking over as the General Manager of the team in December, all of the attention turns to him as he is in control of answering what is next for the organization heading into 2026-27 season.

The moving and shaking was the talking point right from the get go.

Team owner Terry Pegula, in opening remarks at a news conference inside KeyBank Center, spoke of Kekäläinen’s experience and knowledge.

“Over the last seven months, he has shown to me that he is capable of leading our organization into the future. He’s made bold moves in the past, several complicated three-team trades, and he just has a confidence that I believe will help our organization in the future,” Pegula said.

(WXXI)

Bold moves? Let’s talk about them.

Bold Start

Days before the Sabres suffering era started with the firing of Lindy Ruff on February 20, 2013, Scott Howson was fired as the General Manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets on February 12, being replaced by Kekäläinen. The 2011-12 Blue Jackets had been the worst team in the NHL, winning only 29 games and only mustering up 65 points. After starting the post-lockout season 4-7-2 in front of only 10,837 at Nationwide Arena, John Davidson made the GM change. Davidson and Kekäläinen had worked together with the St. Louis Blues, where Davidson was named the team president in 2006 and Kekäläinen was the director of amateur scouting from 2002-2010.

At the time of the GM change, Davidson spoke a familiar sentiment:

I want guys to understand that this is not a status quo organization. We have to get better. That’s not just a message to the players, but everybody. We’re in the business of winning. So are 29 other teams. We have to get better because we haven’t won enough. History shows that.

-John Davidson (Taken from a Buffalo News excerpt)

After the calendar flipped to March, the team finished 19-5-4 to get to 55 points in the 48 game season, falling short of the playoffs only via a tiebreaker with the Minnesota Wild, who won 2 more games.

It only took one trade deadline for him to make his mark on the team with a playoff-focused move. After his predecessor traded Rick Nash to the New York Rangers in July 2012, Kekäläinen got on the phone with Glen Sather, sent Marion Gaborik to the Blue Jackets. After 9 goals and 10 assists in 35 games with the Rangers, Gaborik had 3 goals and 5 assists in the final 12 games of Columbus’s season. He joined the team with another season on his contract and was set to become a UFA in the summer of 2014.

The full move saw Steve Delisle and Blake Parlett also join the Blue Jackets organization, although both were AHL pieces. The Rangers got Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett, John Moore, and a 2014 6th round pick. All three new Rangers actually scored in their team debut the night of the deadline. Brassard was five years younger than Gaborik and played well in his time with the Rangers and then went on to play 8 different stinks through 2023. The enforcer Dorsett played the 2014 season with the Rangers before finishing his career with 4 seasons in Vancouver. Moore bounced around as a serviceable defenseman for the next handful of seasons, including 3 years in New Jersey from 2015-2018. The Rangers actually made the playoffs as the 6-seed in the East with just one less point than the Blue Jackets.

Into 2014, in their first season in the new Metropolitan division, they were a little bit slow out of the gate, 10-14-3 at the end of November, and then flipped the page to go 17-9-1 the next two months. Even with that and the team’s standing in the mix for the inaugural Wild Card spots in the new playoff format, the team still moved on from Gaborik at the 2014 deadline. Gaborik’s Age 31 season with the Jackets the year after was not a good one for him personally, as he suffered a sprained knee earlier in the season and then broke his collarbone in the game he returned to the lineup in December. In 22 games, he scored 6 times and had 8 assists, starting the season with 10 points in the first 10 games.

Since Gaborik did not intend on re-signing in Columbus, Kekäläinen and team traded him to the Los Angeles Kings for a second and a conditional third, which did come to fruition after the Kings won their first round playoff series. Also joining the fold was Matt Frattin, although he did not pan out. The Blue Jackets also added 31 year old Nick Schultz in a buy low for a fifth round pick. Neither of those deadline recipients played for the team following the 2014 season.

On the lesser fortunate side, the trade deadline included an AHL for AHL trade. The Jackets acquired Center Dana Tyrell and Defenseman Matt Taormina in exchange for Sabres club legend Dalton Smitha and…Jonathan Marchessault. I guess the bright side is that the Lightning also ended up moving on from him too before he broke out?

Regardless, the Blue Jackets finished with 93 points, 3 behind the second place Rangers and one behind the third place Flyers in the division. They and the Detroit Red Wings were the two wild card teams, with the Blue Jackets and their 4 extra ROW having the tiebreaker. They would go on to play the Pittsburgh Penguins in the quarterfinals, who defeated them in 6 games. Their two playoff wins in the series were the first two in franchise history.

(One final note from 2014, there’s an interesting quote from the Columbus Dispatch’s Michael Arace in regards to Kekäläinen)

He has said he was never aggressive enough during his short playing career. He vowed that his postplaying career would not include the same regret.

-Michael Arace, February 3 2014

Into the new season, attempting to build upon their best season in franchise history, Todd Richards spoke of the need for the team to get faster, and their first move served to do that. RJ Umberger became an odd man out and returned to Philadelphia along with a 4th round pick in a trade for Scott Hartnell. That one certainly worked out for Columbus.

For a second straight year, the Blue Jackets started poorly, and while they went 10-1-1 in December, it was not good enough to warrant any more big swings.

Durability was a big problem for the Blue Jackets in their 89 point 2014-15 season, with the biggest of those being to Nathan Horton, who was Kekäläinen’s first free agent sweepstakes win. He joined the team banged up and only played 36 games in 2013-14, but then in October 2013, he learned that he had degeneration of his lumbar region of his back. After being signed to bring his combination of size and skill to the fold for 7 seasons, he was moved at the deadline in a bad contract for bad contract trade for the Maple Leafs in which Columbus took on David Clarkson’s contract. Clarkson played a total of 26 games with the Jackets before succumbing to back injuries of his own that ended his career as well.

To close 2015, the team’s biggest seller move at the deadline was a good one, acquiring William Karlsson, Rene Bourque, and a second for James Wisniewski and a third. Another trade of note came in the form of a trade with the Blues for Jordan Leopold when the team needed defensive health to deal with the myriad of injuries on the blue line, sending St. Louis a fifth round pick. After committing to selling at the trade deadline, they sent Leopold onto Minnesota for a fifth and future former Sabre, Justin Falk. In all, the Blue Jackets lost 508 man games to injury in 2014-15.

Second Build Up

Looking to turn it around in the new season, after drafting Zach Werenski 8th overall in the 2015 draft, the next swing was one that took advantage of the contract dispute between a rising forward and his current team. The Blue Jackets acquired a 22-year old Brandon Saad from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for Artem Anisimov, with each of the teams swapping fringe roster players in Alex Broadhurst and Michael Paliotta for Marko Dano, Jeremy Morin, and Corey Tropp. Off the expiration of his ELC, Saad signed for 6 years at $6M AAV and made the all-star game in his first season with the Blue Jackets.

The conclusion of Saad’s tenure of course came two seasons later when he was the central piece of the return to Chicago when the Blue Jackets made another big splash trade, but we’ll get there.

But first came the next two seasons. Three years in a row with a poor start meant the end of the Todd Richards era of Columbus Blue Jackets hockey. After starting 0-7, tied for the worst start in league history, Richards was let go and replaced by John Tortorella. (More from Cleveland Plain Dealer Oct. 22, 2015).

Like Saad, the Blue Jackets had another contract extension stalemate end in a trade, this time internally. After a long back-and-forth to the public chagrin of John Davidson, Ryan Johansen signed a 3-year bridge deal with the Blue Jackets just before the start of the 2014-15 season. Now in January of 2016, Johansen was sent to the Nashville Predators in exchange, one-for-one, for Seth Jones. In discussion of the move, Kekäläinen specified the long running search for a top blue liner. They’d extend Jones for 6 years in the summer.

There was no new coach bump or heroic run to the wild card bubble in 2015-16, as the Blue Jackets finished last in the Atlantic with 76 points. Of course, we know that is what led them to a 3rd overall pick and the addition of Pierre-Luc Dubois the last time the draft was in Buffalo (maybe we’ll do a draft version of this exercise in a couple weeks, maybe…).

BUT, the state of Ohio did bring in some hockey hardware up in the Northeast.

Kekäläinen, Davidson, and Bill Zito were all extended for two years before the start of the new season. In contrast to what became the norm in Kekäläinen’s tenure, there were no big swings in 2016-17. but the work to get to this new season was about to come to fruition. And conveniently enough, Ben Oakley made a video about this season a few weeks ago.

The 2016-17 Blue Jackets finished with a 50-24-8 record, good for 108 points. However, that was only good for third in not only the east but also…the Metro. So they had to go on the road and take on the 2-seeded defending champs, the Pittsburgh Penguins, in the opening round. They lost in 5.

After the elimination, Mitch Stacy of the Associated Press wrote about how offense could be the target in the coming offseason, and that ended up being the next move. Brandon Saad returned to Chicago, joined by Anton Forsberg and a 2018 fifth round pick, and in return, the Blue Jackets welcomed Artemi Panarin, Tyler Motte, and a 2017 sixth round pick. Motte would be moved to Vancouver in exchange for Thomas Vanek at the deadline. They also were in the mix for Matt Duchene, but he ended up heading to Ottawa.

As for Panarin, he led the 2017-18 Blue Jackets with 27 goals and 55 assists in 81 games. The team once again returned to the playoffs with 97 points, but this time they were WC1, winning a tiebreak with the WC2 in New Jersey. Finishing one point ahead of them in the Metro was a Flyers team that had 14 OTL points to get to 98. The reward for being WC1 was a date with the Washington Capitals, who finished with 105 points. Columbus won the first two games in overtime but then lost game 3 in the return home in double overtime. Three more Capitals wins later, the eventual champs eliminated the Blue Jackets in 6.

In 2018-19, they circled back around and finally picked up Matt Duchene in a February rental trade that sent Vitalii Abramov, Jonathan Davidsson, and a 2019 first round pick to the Senators. If Duchene would have re-signed with the Blues, . The next day, the Senators and Blue Jackets put another phone call in to the league office, and Ryan Dzingel also headed to Columbus in exchange for Anthony Duclair and second rounders in 2020 and 2021.

The 2019 season was a make or break season, as Panarin’s contract was expiring, as was that of Sergei Bobrovsky. The Metropolitan Division was once again very jumbled, but that wasn’t a reason to sit back. It didn’t get easier either. Their 98 points was again a single game (2) short of a spot in the top 3 (Pittsburgh’s 100 points again came from double-digit OTLs…sigh). But they also struck out on WC1, as the Carolina Hurricanes had 99 points, meaning the Blue Jackets would need to go over to the Atlantic, with the 62-16-4 Tampa Bay Lightning awaiting them.

In Game 1, the Lightning got out to a 3-0 lead after 20. Nick Foligno scored the lone goal in the second to cut the deficit to 2, and then in the third, goals from David Savard, Josh Anderson, and Seth Jones gave the Blue Jackets the lead, shocking the crowd at Amalie Arena. The stun carried into the rest of the series. Game 2 was a 5-1 win for the Blue Jackets, and then once they returned home, they won the next two games 3-1 and 7-3 to complete the sweep. In the second round against the 107 point Boston Bruins, they led the series 2-1 but then surrendered the final 3 games of the series.

In the summer of 2019, after Bobrovsky and Panarin moved on, Joonas Korpisalo put up a 2.60 GAA and .911 save percentage, but offensively, no skater exceeded 49 points in 70 games before the COVID shutdown made everything hard to decipher more closely.

They participated in the qualifying round of the bubble and defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs in 5 games before the Lightning got their revenge on their way to a Stanley Cup. Which for those keeping score at home does indeed mean that all 4 teams that eliminated the Blue Jackets won the Eastern Conference and three of them won the whole thing.

In the second of the covid-shortened seasons, Columbus finished with only 48 points in 56 games, last in the Metro. It would be the final season for John Tortorella in Columbus. 2021 was a year of wheeling and dealing for Kekäläinen, starting in January with moving the disgruntled Pierre-Luc Dubois and a 2022 third round pick to Winnipeg in exchange for Patrick Laine and Jack Roslovic.

Then at that trade deadline came the two earlier-quote-in-the-article three team trades, with both moves using brokers to retain salary for the buyers.

From here, despite the effort, the Blue Jackets brass was unable to replace Panarin.

At the 2021 draft, Seth Jones, a 2021 first round pick, and 2022 sixth round pick were sent to Chicago for Adam Boqvist, a 2021 first and second round pick, and a conditional first round pick in one of 2022 or 2023 (which came to fruition in 2023). They jumped back up to 81 points in 2021-22 but were well out of the mix for the wild card for the second straight season.

In 2022-23, things went backwards, finishing with only 59 points despite signing Johnny Gaudreau and Erik Gudbranson. These were the final big swings for Kekäläinen. In 2023-24, they were back in the bottom of the Metro, and Kekäläinen was relieved of his duties on February 15.

From John Davidson’s announcement of the firing:

Unfortunately as a team, our results haven’t been good enough…While our team is improving and we have some very talented players and prospects, it became apparent that we needed a new voice to lead us forward as we turn the page.

–The Newark Advocate, February 17, 2024

So What Have We Learned

This exercise definitely affirmed the reputation of Jarmo Kekäläinen when he was hired to take over the reigns from the Sabres. The situations in Columbus then and Buffalo now are surely different, but if you look at the build up in the end of the 2010s, is that the median expectations for the next four seasons of Sabres hockey? Are the Sabres now better than the Blue Jackets were during their run? What kind of difference is there in coaching?

Most importantly, what did Kekäläinen learn that will help him do better going forward with the Sabres, who have their core mostly in place for at least the next 4 years, which could lead to a longer stretch of potential success than those Blue Jackets did.

But of course, the moves will be judged by just how playoff runs go and which banners, if any, are raised. Is it fair? Depends who you ask.

Let’s see where it goes.

(Photo via The Athletic, 2019)