Something has happened over the last three weeks that was totally unexpected for me.
I’ve enjoyed watching the Buffalo Sabres play.
For most of the first three months of the season, I looked at that part of my job as drudgery. Talking about the Sabres on the show was gradually sucking the life out of me. Then the Sabres made a coaching change, firing Ralph Krueger and replacing him with interim head coach Don Granato.
I can’t thank Granato and interim assistant coaches Matt Ellis and Dan Girardi enough, along with the players, for making hockey fun again.
Since Granato was elevated to the top job, the team has been entertaining. They're playing a faster game, scoring more goals, playing better in their own end and winning... in regulation too!
A number of individuals have shown improvement under Granato and company, which is a big reason why the Sabres have six wins in their last 12 contests. They had the same number of wins in 28 games under Krueger.
Granato has the players thinking less about a system and principles, and more about attacking and playing free. His message of not being afraid to make mistakes and let your skill and ability come through has made a big difference for everyone on the roster.
If you’d like some numbers to back this up, here we go:
Casey Mittelstadt has a point in nine of his last 12 games. He has 10 points (7+3) in those 12 games. Last season in 31 games with the Sabres, Mittelstadt had a total of nine points. Mittelstadt’s career-high is 12 from two years ago, and that took 77 games to accomplish.
I’ll be honest with you, I had written Mittelstadt off at the beginning of the season. Not just written him off as a center, I’m talking about not figuring him in to the Sabres' future.
However, he looks like a completely different player this month. He looks so confident with the puck on his stick, and has the confidence to shoot the puck now that some of those shots are finding the back of the net.
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Speaking of me writing players off, how about Tage Thompson?
Signing him to a three-year contract this past October seemed odd, since he hadn’t shown much of anything after coming over from the St. Louis Blues in the Ryan O’Reilly trade. When Granato took over, he said it was time to get Thompson some consistent minutes, and the player is rewarding the coach’s faith in him.
Thompson has six points (5+1) in 11 games this month. He had just one goal and three points in his first 17 games this season.
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Rasmus Asplund looked like he wouldn’t be more than a defensive-minded forward, but he has some offense in his game after all.
After scoring just one goal and having only three points in 29 games last season, Asplund now has eight points in his last 18 games. Five of his six goals this season have come since Granato was named the interim head coach.
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After making switching to center after getting his NHL feet wet by playing on the right wing, Dylan Cozens has looked extremely comfortable with the added responsibility. His speed, vision, playmaking ability and passing are one of the many factors for the increased goal production from the team.
Granato isn’t shielding the rookie either. In recent games, he had the Cozens line with Anders Bjork and Arttu Ruotsalainen matched up with Sidney Crosby’s line against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and before that they faced Nicklas Backstrom’s line in Washington against the Capitals.
Since returning from his most recent upper-body injury, the 20-year-old has five assists in six games.
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The top two examples of resurrected or reborn players are Rasmus Dahlin and Henri Jokiharju.
Both young defensemen were struggling over the first two-plus months of the season, as both saw their games take a significant step back. Granato came in and told the talented puck-moving blue liners that they had the green light to go up the ice and help out on offense. He also said not to worry about making a mistake and worrying that any mistake would cost them ice-time.
I’m guessing Girardi, who had a long and successful career playing as an NHL defenseman, has played a role in the turnaround of their games as well.
Over the course of his last 10 games, Dahlin has scored two goals and added six assists for eight points, while also being a plus-1 in 22:27 of average ice-time.
Meanwhile, Jokiharju's numbers have not been as noticeable, but the 21-year-old has still put up a goal and three assists in his last eight games, while putting up a plus-2 rating in 20:22 of average ice-time.
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He isn’t a young player like the others I mentioned, but Jeff Skinner looks better, not surprisingly.
He’s been bumped up to a better line, has seen his ice-time increase, and now he’s producing more. Skinner had just four points in the first 32 games of the season. He has six points (2+4) in the first 11 games of this month.
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All of that has added up to the Sabres scoring more goals.
Under Krueger, Buffalo averaged an abysmal 2.1 goals per-game. With Granato, the team is averaging 2.8 goals per-game. In the last 12 games, where they’ve gone 6-4-2, the average is 3.3 goals per-game.
Granato even has the team snapping droughts. The Sabres recently recorded their first regulation win in Washington in six-and-a-half years, and also picked up their first home regulation against Pittsburgh in nine years.
I have no idea what general manager Kevyn Adams will do as far as the coaching search, but he has to be very happy with everything he has seen from Granato, who continues to make a very strong case for the interim tag to be removed.