Sorry (not sorry) for the sh*t post title but Tim Graham at the Athletic makes a good point about the lack of experience on the Sabres staff. Too bad they let Peca walk. Anyway, this is Graham:
Granato has chosen to hire assistants with very little NHL coaching experience.
Matt Ellis, Buffalo’s power-play designer, has worked with professional players only in his three seasons here. Ellis played 286 NHL games, but previous coaching experience was limited to a couple seasons with the Buffalo Junior Sabres.
Defensive coach Marty Wilford is in his sixth NHL season, but his first three were with the Anaheim Ducks, who failed to make the playoffs. The year before Granato hired him, the Ducks owned the NHL’s second-worst record, better than only the Sabres.
Sabres assistant Jason Christie was an ECHL head coach for 18 years. His final season, as a 30-year-old winger, was for head coach Granato. Christie later was Granato’s assistant with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves. This is Christie’s third year as an NHL assistant.
Aside from goaltending coach Mike Bales’ success with Pittsburgh (two Stanley Cups), Granato’s assistants have combined to either play in or coach four NHL postseason games, with Ellis playing them all for Buffalo.
Granato, who didn’t play above the ECHL level, hasn’t been behind the bench for an NHL playoff game either.
https://theathletic.com/5088152/2023/11/25/the-satchel-buffalo-bills-buffalo-sabres/
by The-Real-Larry
10 Comments
I had no idea you could jump from Jr. Sabres -> NHL. Lmao. I can’t wait to coach my kid in hockey so I can get an NHL coaching job.
It’s time to have this conversation. There was always a question about DG’s ability to actually coach and delivery results once we passed the “development” stage. Right now it’s a massive fail, and it seems to be regressing back where he’s comfortable with all these call ups. If Rosen, biro, kulich become the story of the season due to their development, we’ve failed.
Adams should go before or with Granato. It’s his failed roster
No. I get that this isn’t exclusive to Buffalo fandom, but holy fucking shit the unironic “Fire everyone immediately” when things are looking slightly shaky has been insane this year with both the Sabres and the Bills. We missed the playoffs by a point last year in an extremely competitive division. He hasn’t even had 3 full seasons yet. His star player is hurt and he’s chugging along at .500.
For fuck sakes just let it breathe and let it play out. We’re a young team. Half of our future is still in the AHL.
If we miss the playoffs this year, *then* we can start to have that conversation.
I agree with much of what you’re getting at but Peca had no NHL coaching experience either
> Granato has chosen to hire assistants with very little NHL coaching experience.
I don’t think this statement is correct. Have said it before. I don’t think Granato had much choice on who his assistants were when he got the HC job. The org was a dumpster fire and they just hired a HC with zero HC experience. If you were a qualified assistant coach living in another city, would you uproot your family to move to Buffalo and hitch your train on to that? I wouldn’t. It’s why the assistant coaching profiles are what they are. Only coaches with that level of experience or showing high promise in a lower level league would hitch their career to that.
It should be rephrased as Granato has chosen to **retain** assistants with no to very little NHL coaching experience and no to very little NHL playing experience. That’s the problem. It’s pretty clear that Granato has the confidence of Adams to the point where he doesn’t feel uncomfortable. But this is the catch-22 because if he was uncomfortable he would make some changes to the staff.
If you add this trust (i.e. time in how long Granato will have before his seat gets hot) with the talent that’s on this roster and the trajectory this roster _should_ be on that sales pitch should be enough to land a coach. Even if you drop the NHL coaching experience, you still have options to upgrade the staff.
See. Michael Peca. He wanted to join the Buffalo bench but Granato didn’t want to break up his and now he is with the Rangers. Peca won the Selke twice and wore the “C” for Buffalo during the good times. Is anyone really going to make an argument that he would not be an upgrade over Jason Christie? Is there not a single assistant coach out there that might have more to offer the young defensive core of this team a coaching upgrade than what Marty Wilford brings?
You don’t fire Granato because he still brings a lot to the table but I do think Adams needs to sit him down and tell him he must upgrade his bench.
I’m so glad this is posted. I was asking myself this question last night “is this a head coach problem or assistant coaching issues?” But I don’t know shit about the assistants or their effect to on ice production, so I really wasn’t in a position to find the answer.
The boys love Donny, so maybe the organization can step in and say “Sorry Donny, but we gotta get some more proven guys beside you”
Last year, with Ellis running the power play, they ended the season at 22.1%, 12th in the league. Nobody was griping about his lack of experience then.
The NHL is chock full of successful coaches that never played much above juniors / minor league, and also made the coaching jump from that level right into the NHL.
Lazy takes from Graham.
🔥 Fire Granato and Adams 🔥
The players don’t respect Donny, it is self evident. It’s not a few guys underperforming, it’s the whole damn roster. They’re undisciplined, don’t play with any sort of structure, and don’t compete. If you respect your coach, you don’t do that