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BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Sabres fired head coach Don Granato on Tuesday, making him the seventh coach to be ousted throughout what’s grown into an NHL-record 13-season playoff drought.
The transfer was introduced by the group a day after the Sabres closed their season with a 4-2 win at Tampa Bay. They completed with a 39-27-6 report and had been eradicated from playoff competition final week.
Granato accomplished his third full season in Buffalo after taking up on an interim foundation within the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2021 season after Ralph Krueger was fired. And the transfer comes with the 56-year-old Granato nonetheless having two seasons left on his contract, which featured an extension that kicked in to start out subsequent season.
He finishes with a report of 122-125-27 in Buffalo.
The group additionally introduced the firing of assistant coach Jason Christie and video coordinator Matt Smith.
The Sabres stumbled via a season wherein the group gained three straight video games simply twice and had been too usually unable to beat gradual begins.
This was not the expectation for a group that opened the season with GM Kevyn Adams declaring the window of competition as being open. The blossoming hopes had been generated by the Sabres lacking the playoffs by two factors final season.
The Sabres’ playoff drought is tied with the New York Jets as being the longest energetic drought in North America’s 4 main skilled sports activities.
This season, the Sabres had been undone by accidents to key gamers, goaltending inconsistencies, a front-office choice so as to add extra youth to what was already the NHL’s youngest roster and Granato making the questionable change in teaching philosophy to have the Sabres swap to a extra defensive fashion.
A season after the free-wheeling Sabres completed third within the NHL with 293 targets, Buffalo’s manufacturing dropped to at the moment rank twenty second with 244 with two days left within the common season. After ending twenty sixth in permitting 297 targets final season, the Sabres at the moment rank eleventh in permitting 243.
Poor begins performed a key think about sinking Buffalo’s season. The Sabres have allowed a league-worst 97 targets within the first interval, whereas scoring simply 67, which ranks twenty second.
Granato declined to handle his standing following the sport at Tampa Bay, by saying he wished to deal with the outing.
Final week, Granato stated, his sole focus each season was bettering the Sabres.
“I’ve to do my job every single day. And it’s to assist this group and this franchise get higher every single day. That’s my focus every single day. That’s my drive every single day,” he stated. So I don’t know, you realize, some other strategy to do issues. After I first obtained on this place, even because the interim, I wasn’t making an attempt to turn into the subsequent head coach. There’s a job that must be achieved. My focus is on that. It needs to be on that.”
The Sabres now discover themselves in an all-too acquainted place in launching yet one more teaching search. Granato was the group’s sixth coach since Lindy Ruff was fired two months into the lockout-shortened 2012 season.
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