Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) - The Buffalo Sabres are nearing the halfway point of the NHL season, still looking to string together some wins on the schedule.
Buffalo wrapped up its 2023 portion of the schedule on a sour note, losing to the Senators, 5-1, on Sunday night in Ottawa. The Sabres are hoping to kick off 2024 on a high note when the travel to Montreal to face the Canadiens on Thursday night at the Bell Centre.
This next stretch of games, at this point of the year, are extremely important for the Sabres, given their current position in the Eastern Conference standings.
Buffalo currently sits eight points behind the final Wild Card spot in the conference currently held by the Washington Capitals. Meanwhile, the Sabres are currently nine points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs for third in the Atlantic Division.
Sabres head coach Don Granato remains confident in his team's ability to work out of their early season slumps and be competitive this season, given the landscape of the rest of the league.
"There's no question you need a streak, and we need to put that together," said Granato on Wednesday during his weekly appearance on the "Jeremy and Joe Show" on WGR. "There's always the urgency. I think the challenge and benefit is if you think about the top perennial teams over the last seven, eight, nine years, they're getting older, and they're starting to come down. They've come down each year over the last three, and the bottom has come up over the last three years. So the margin is smaller percentage points between top and bottom, just on outright skill, talent, depth, and everything else. Every night is harder. We're adjusting to that, but at the same time, that's kept the whole pack very, very tight and very close."
Buffalo's goaltending room has had to overcome quite a bit of adversity this season, especially with two young goaltenders leading the charge. Granato believes these sorts of challenges are inevitable, but are good for young netminders like Ukko-Pekka Luukonen and Devon Levi.
"Like every player in the league, they're gonna have ups-and-downs. The goal then is to minimize the downs," Granato said with Joe DiBiase and Sal Capaccio. "Obviously when a young guy has it down, the bonus is he may have never experienced that, so he's gonna gain experience in it that another guy would of. You're gonna have ups-and-downs. It's a pretty challenging level, so those are inevitable."
One outside factor affecting the Sabres this season has been major injuries at different positions. Granato knows how difficult it is to find chemistry in a team that's always rotating players due to injuries.
Where things are starting to improve for Buffalo going forward is the group is just about healthy and back to full strength.
"When you finally get a healthy group, it is such a nice feeling as a coach," Granato said. "The Thompson, Tuch and Skinner line, they've played three games together since mid-November, four games together now. Prior to that, Skinner had been hurt a bit and been out different dates, Thompson was out and on different dates, Tuch was out for a whole month. What happens then is you can't do linework with the three of them. When you finally get the three of them together, it's exciting for me, because I can say, 'OK, now let's look at your film and maybe we can tweak this area, tweak that area.' But when they're not even in the lineup, you can't do that. That continuity is great, because now you can keep the lines consistent."
Hear more from Granato's appearance during the "Jeremy and Joe Show" available in the player below:
