BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — There were no feelings of satisfaction on Saturday, unlike the ones Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams expressed two years ago when Buffalo showed signs of progress in finishing a mere two points out of playoff contention.
And there were no mentions of palm trees or low taxes, as Adams did amid a 13-game skid in December, when lamenting the advantages other NHL markets enjoyed over Buffalo in luring high-end talent.
All that was left was frustration, with Adams fixing the blame on himself after the Sabres extended their NHL-record playoff drought to a 14th season, and some 18 months after he had declared the team’s competitive window being open.
“It’s not good enough. That would be the first thing I would say,” Adams said during a near hour-long news conference two days after the Sabres finished 14th in the Eastern Conference standings and 26th overall.
“To be honest, I believe we should be a playoff team right now and we failed,” he added, referring to the message he intends to deliver owner Terry Pegula in an upcoming meeting. “So it’s owning that, taking my responsibility for that, and then moving past that and saying, ’Here’s how I see us improving, and what we can do to fix it.'”
Though acknowledging he’s received no assurances from Pegula, Adams said he has no reason to believe any front-office shuffles loom following his fifth season as GM.
What’s clear though is Adams acknowledging he’s running out of chances to build a competitor.
“I understand the urgency,” he said. “I do believe that we’re closer than further. But the words are the words. We need to win hockey games.”
The Sabres haven’t made the playoffs since 2011, and haven’t won a playoff series since 2007, when they reached the East finals before losing to Ottawa.
It’s a span in which they’ve gone through seven coaching changes, bookended by Lindy Ruff being fired in 2013 and his return this past season. And it's a stretch in which Buffalo has finished last overall four times and no better than 19th.
Despite starting this year with a renewed sense of belief following Ruff’s return, the Sabres' season was undone before Christmas following a 0-10-3 skid spanning Nov. 27 to Dec. 21 that dropped Buffalo from seventh in the East to last.
Adams has second-guessed himself for failing to make a move to spark his team, and said he needs to be more reactive in the future.
Ruff, who sat next to Adams at the podium, is already looking ahead to next season in believing he has a better grasp of the team, and buoyed by how Buffalo competed in closing 12-7-1.
“I still remain very confident. I’m angry at myself for not getting the job done,” said Ruff, who became the NHL’s fifth-coach to win 900 career games following a season-ending 5-4 win over Philadelphia. His 607 career wins in Buffalo also rank second on the NHL list among coaches with one franchise.
“Early in the year, we had trouble with adversity,” the 65-year-old Ruff said. “Later in the year, I think we dealt with high-pressure situations better.”
Buffalo does have talent in the likes of Rasmus Dahlin, who finished fourth among NHL defenseman with 68 points, and forward Tage Thompson, whose 44 goals were tied with Alex Ovechkin for third overall.
Among the issues were spotty goaltending and the inconsistency of a roster that featured nine players age 23 or younger.
Though a majority of the roster is expected to stay intact, the Sabres have proven over their playoff drought that a good finish to one season doesn’t carry over into the next.
Veteran forward Jason Zucker isn’t banking on hope.
“I had a coach at one point tell me that hope is a (terrible) strategy, so I’m going to stick to that,” Zucker said, using a profanity for emphasis.
“Ultimately, we have to look at it as we weren’t good enough,” added Zucker, who last month signed a contract extension securing him through 2026-27. “We need to raise our standard individually and bring that into the summer and ultimately come back better next year.”
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Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff gestures during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Florida Panthers, Saturday, April 12, 2025, in Sunrise, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
FILE - Buffalo Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams resounds to questions after the second day of the NHL hockey draft, June 29, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
