After a shortened offseason and an active summer to re-tool the roster, the Buffalo Sabres are ready to open the 2021-22 regular season on Thursday night at KeyBank Center against the Montreal Canadiens.
It has been a 10-year stretch of turmoil surrounding the Sabres, as the team has not made a playoff appearance since the 2010-11 season. In fact, over the last eight seasons, Buffalo has not come close to making the playoff, with the best campaign coming in the 2015-16 season with 81 points in the standings.
After a putrid 6-18-4 start to the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, the Sabres made a coaching change, firing Ralph Krueger and promoting assistant coach Don Granato to head coach on an interim basis.
In the final 28 games of last season, the Sabres managed to turn things around with a 9-16-3 record, but still finished in last place of the overall standings. While a 9-16-3 finish isn't significant on paper, the team started to rebound on the ice with more complete efforts, and a number of the younger players starting to show more promise and development in their game.
With the uptick in production from players like Tage Thompson, Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Asplund, Rasmus Dahlin and Henri Jokiharju, the Sabres made the decision to remove the interim tag from Granato's title and make him the 20th head coach in franchise history.
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Now firmly at the helm, Granato will continue to be tasked with developing the young talent on the Buffalo roster, while also trying to establish a new culture in the locker room with hard-working players of good character that want to be members of the Sabres going forward.
However, expectations surrounding the Sabres are expected to be low once again, as many around the hockey realm believe Buffalo to be one of the worst teams in the NHL once again. With another season of no playoffs this year, the Sabres would then hold the new NHL record for the longest playoff drought of 11 seasons.
With the return of Granato behind the Buffalo bench, it also marks his return to the airwaves on WGR Sports Radio 550! The Sabres head coach will continue to make his weekly appearance during the "Howard and Jeremy Show" at 8 p.m. ET every Tuesday mornings with Howard Simon and Jeremy White.
Granato joined the show on Tuesday ahead of his team's season opener on Thursday against Montreal in Downtown Buffalo.
Here is some of what Granato had to say:
Granato on expectations for his team in the 2021-22 season:
"I'm re-assured that they are willing and ready to compete. Their conditioning level I thought was great coming in, then it became getting them into game condition level. They can't do that over the summer time. The physicality is there, and they've competed hard in practice every day. We've had lots of practice time, which is a luxury, and they've taken advantage of it. I'm excited with where we are and to begin the process now that the regular season has started."
Granato on how he wants his team to play every game this year:
"I grew up loving hockey. Loved to play it. We'd play it 24 hours a day if I didn't need sleep or to eat. There's a passion involved in that. It's a game when played the right way, it brings a lot of passion and a lot of energy, and I want our guys to play that way. I believe we have guys that want to play that way. We want to play a high-tempo, fast-paced game both offensively and defensively."
Granato on getting back to a sense of normalcy in the NHL:
"Last year was just so weird and difficult. Even meetings were difficult. But now with the way things are with the pandemic, it's nice to have meetings and not worry about stuff or think of five different things you have to do before even holding a meeting. Size of rooms, spacing of seats, duration... now you just go have a meeting, and the player love that, enjoy that. ... Everything feels back to normal. We can only hope it stays that way, because it really does feel nice, and we can get right to work without those distractions."
Granato on the standards of his team going forward in Buffalo:
"Bad habits are not tolerated. That's one thing I have no patience for. When you're coaching, your standard is probably higher than the players in many respects. When you find players that have a very, very high personal standard that line up with all of us in those leadership positions around professional sports or anywhere, you love it. That's what we've tried to do. Bring in people here with very high personal standards that makes it a lot easier for us to push them and makes for a lot more consistency, habits are much better. We do feel [general manager] Kevyn Adams and our scouting staff did a really good job of bringing in people to fit that, beyond just the hockey player."
You can listen to Granato's entire interview during the "Howard and Jeremy Show" below:
