BUFFALO, N.Y. — The growth throughout the Buffalo Sabres organization is indisputable, and the closeness among its players is palpable.
"You can really see we're brothers in the locker room. We care about each other, and we have something really good going on," Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin said March 13 after Buffalo beat Toronto in the outdoor Heritage Classic 5-2 in Hamilton, Ontario.
The Sabres seem to have real direction after a decade of losing, with a young core of players learning and bonding along the way, with the right veteran leadership to guide them.
Buffalo general manager Kevyn Adams has put the team's culture first in his first two years on the job, making trades and selecting draft picks that impact the dressing room just as well as the play on the ice.
"Something that I've seen all year building is how much these players care about each other. I see it in practices. I see it on the team plane. I just see the camaraderie. ... It's one of the things we've really worked hard at here, is let's build around a young core of people that truly want to be here," Adams told 2 On Your Side's Julianne Pelusi in an exclusive interview ahead of the NHL's trade deadline on Monday.
He's accomplished his goal to build the culture and find players who truly want to be in Buffalo, which will make his second spring trade deadline as a general manager more difficult than his first.
"If the answer was, 'No, I'm not necessarily all in' or 'I don't want to be here,' then I was OK with that, that it was not going to work for us here, then we had to make those decisions and move on," Adams said.
"It's very different than last year. ... Ultimately my job is to make sure we're doing the best thing for the organization, and we have to continue to be disciplined and look at every opportunity to improve our franchise. But there is absolutely no doubt that you look at the way moving a player and asset versus what they bring to the locker room, and what they mean to the players currently on the ice."
Adams made his first move before Monday's 3 p.m. deadline on Sunday afternoon, sending defenseman Robert Hagg to the Florida Panthers in exchange for a sixth-round pick.
A handful of other Sabres could be on the table, with center Cody Eakin, winger Vinnie Hinostroza, defenseman Colin Miller, and goalie Craig Anderson potentially being attractive rentals for other NHL teams.
"When I got this job, I promised myself that I was going to be who I am, be myself and my style is just to be really honest and talk to players, have open, honest communication, which I've done with multiple players," Adams said.
"You know, certainly with Craig (Anderson), have had that conversation just so he knows exactly how I feel. I understand exactly how he feels, and there's no guessing. ... I don't want to give too much, but what I will say is he and I have had a really honest conversation, then I'll leave it at that. But what I will tell you is I know how important he is in our room and what he's done for our organization this year. He's a guy that's loved being in Buffalo."
Building a culture first didn't begin with Adams' taking the general manager job in 2020.
"Every team that I was on that had success and on different levels of success. I was fortunate to win a Stanley Cup, but I was on other successful teams. There was always, you know, a common thread among them that how much the team cared about each other," Adams said, referring to his 2006 Stanley Cup win as a player and alternate captain with the Carolina Hurricanes.
"When you trust each other and you care about each other off the ice and you get to know people, at the end of the day, if you get to know each other as people, it carries over onto the ice, and you just want to battle for each other that little bit more, and so I really felt like we needed to get that culture piece right."
Adams' decision to name Don Granato the new head coach of the Buffalo Sabres last summer, dropping the interim tag he earned last March, was choosing culture over NHL coaching tenure.
"I really felt from the beginning that Donnie was the right fit for where we are as an organization at the time," Adams said.
"Certainly as we went through the interviews and different coaches, just what stood out to me so much was that Donnie was going to embrace that, because I really, truly believe for us to move forward, we're going to have to embrace the youth and development."
Right now, the Sabres will have three first-round picks heading into the 2022 NHL Draft. The building process isn't finished.
With the organization also dealing with its lowest attendance rates in history, Julianne asked Adams when fans can expect a winning team again.
"It's hard to talk about timelines. What I think the important thing to focus on is are we doing the right things, on and off the ice, to build this into a team that has sustainable success. ... I do believe if we do things the right way, that we build this the right way, we'll have success. Our fans will have something that they can be proud of."