Was Firing Don Granato Good for the Sabres? | The Jeremy and Joe Show

Was Firing Don Granato Good for the Sabres? | The Jeremy and Joe Show

i was thinking about you know we know it’s not linear but go back one year One year ago Kevin Adams fired Don Granado and said I know what this team needs He was very bullish about it Like another moment where Adams is this almost defiant I know what’s right And then he hired Lindy Mhm And if Lindy were almost anyone else wouldn’t we say the move was the wrong move they did not get better Don Granado’s two years as coach of the Sabres are their two high points during the drought right he has their two highest like their best results are Granado Yeah Two of them which is one of them one of them by far Basically 91 points and then 84 points Yeah And then they fired that coach I’m reminded of when they fired Bilesma Bilesma the expectation that year was to get 95 points Bilesma set it on the record like at NHL.com like we think we could be a 95point team They finished in the 80s They fired everybody It becomes Botrol and Hley and they go the wrong direction quickly too right they fired Bilesma Well there was the 10ame win streak and then it was but they fired Bilesma and Murray because this isn’t good enough right and that was reasonably good I mean no I shouldn’t say that It was I think they might have had 78 points after an 81 point season but two years out of a full on tank They hadn’t finished last That’s right They were not finishing last They fired they fired Bilesma and Murray on a season where they thought they’d get to the 90s This isn’t good enough You’re gone Botrol comes in and then to me that’s like where the cratering begins Mhm And they’re still trying to get out of it And Granada was the closest they got to getting out of it And now you know Lindy got the job and you could say a number of things It’s the 13-game losing streak It’s the the fact that they don’t they don’t get saves I think they need saves and they can continue to be undone by their goalending while the GM says I’m I have all the confidence in the world in a guy that had a bad season and has had like one good 50game stretch and a guy that’s in the AHL right all the confidence in the world You didn’t have the confidence in them in April That was James Rymer’s job right two years ago you didn’t have the confidence how many years back is Craig Anderson This team finds its way to waiver goalies bailing them out down the stretch Levi is a little bit of this too Levi was sign him We need him right now He played their Did he not play the seven most important games of the entire playoff draft off of like he was in his dorm room the week before Yeah And he just he graduates basically or he probably did in the summer He leaves school and it’s immediately you need to play the most important games that we have played in 15 years right they’ve been so unprepared in goal and so I mean there it is again yesterday confidence in the world How much of that is they they believed Levi was going to be different They and they bet and they bet on it They bet on Would you still make that bet no uh that he’ll be well not that he’ll be different I mean that’s already like ship sailed on that That he’d be the rare guy that can jump right to the pros because nobody ever does that right like he could still be really good but there was a lot of sample like that these guys at this age just don’t show up and produce for you It’s like John Gibson was the list of guys over like a decade that had done it He’s a You want him uh uh more more than maybe the guys that are here Yeah but that was a long shot You as good as he was you needed him to be like historically good for his age to be worthy of giving him the number one job and they just handed it to him And they built the whole roster around the fact that he was going to do it So that’s the goalie part of it The coach part of it I mean I’ll go back even to before they fired Granado because was it the wrong move to hire Lindy like at this at that point it’s you’re going for an experienced coach Like I’m not going to blast them for wanting that If they had hired Craig Bubé instead of Lindy Ruff and they had landed on that I I don’t know Like I would feel like you’re trying to do something here You’re trying to be relevant You’re trying to get a certain type of coach that I’m not going to blast you for Put it this way If it had just been Seth Appert gets the job instead of people would be saying why did you do this that’s very different It got worse I I agree with that But Lindy is kind of there to you know insulate that as a guy that has won before Yeah But I’ll backtrack even still to after their best season of the drought by far Their verdict was we can’t win this way And even though Granado was still the coach maybe it was from him maybe it was from above him of no we can’t play that way anymore You know we can’t play run and gun up and down the ice trying to outscore teams We missed the playoffs by one point but uh no we need to play this way to get over the hump And then what happened it’s gone down since then It still blows my mind They they haven’t even by the way truly I mean maybe last year you could say that they started to revert back to you know let’s play a little bit more aggressive and loose and try to score Or you could just say they’re bad defensively But it still blows my mind that their verdict at the end of their best season of the drought was “Oh no you can’t win that way.” It’s crazy Yeah they were so close They were almost better than the Panthers by a by a point by a Hudson fashioning leg And they added a bottom bottom pair of defenseman and a fourth liner and changed their style dramatically No Overnight And it hasn’t worked since So and that’s that’s part of Granado Like I that’s why I I have trouble even blaming Granado for points of that final season that he is the coach because I don’t know that they were that that’s not when I think of Granado hockey What do you think of it’s wide open wide open field like don’t don’t be afraid to make mistakes and and getting players to play their best Yeah They scored on the rush all the time and all of that was just has been gone for well it was at least gone for a year and a half Like last year it really did start coming back right yeah they scored a bunch last year Yeah Jerry in Pennsylvania Hey Jerry good morning Hey thanks for taking the call Good morning guys Morning Hey so I guess I’ve got two things One of which I kind of thought about on the line The first is doesn’t it feels to me like the Savers are pretty close like if you woke up this morning to a very doable Marco Rossi trade doesn’t the conversation seem a little bit more optimistic about them like they’re pretty close to fielding a playoff roster And uh the second thing is I think the like when they say we’re taking lessons from the Bills I think that really hurts them because the Bills you can draft the first round player and have him be in the league the next year and it’s the whole like draft develop resign But like with you know with a hockey team you kind of need to bring in the vets I mean you’ve got people that have been sitting in the minors for you know draft plus three years doing nothing for your team Anyways thank you guys I’ll hang up and listen Thanks Jerry I wonder how much taking lessons from the Bills is just an effort to stand next to the very goodlooking organization We are one and the same Like all right And the Bills got it right So we’ll get it right by learning from them I wonder how much of that is just you know like um market It’s a show Yeah It seems like a show right i I don’t know But I it’s funny like that that’s part of what’s crazy about this 14-year drought is uh how many times have they been not that far away like a couple players the right at least three of the years saves would have done it just saves Mhm And that’s a spot that’s been rough I mean since left it’s a rotating cast of characters whether it’s your Eric Comry your Carter they don’t spend a lot at goender finally got a glimpse of one guy that was consistent They gave him five for 25 right away Quick bang UPPL That’s our guy for this amount of money And Levi is I don’t know I feel like Levi is a coin toss for me I have no idea if it’s if it’s going to work out He’s obviously incredible in the AHL And you’d like to believe the profile is going to come up here and be a differencemaker That’s when I really got excited about them You know that run they make last year or that that year where they just missed the playoffs It was they can score and what if they got it’s kind of like the Bills conversation like a real differencemaker a player that rates Mhm Because you know they love to talk about tough to play against and fourth line’s important and this and that but like who wins in the league great players the great players win and the Sabres have a couple but they need more I mean this isn’t exactly breaking news They need more good players and well or they or they need to your point the saves Like if you don’t have enough great players you need saves You can get in with saves Yeah that happens every year in the league where a team makes the playoffs and everyone will show up in April to like let’s preview the playoffs Uh this team they had 98 points but okay we just know that was a hot goalie season right like the team’s actually not that happens every year in the league But on this team it’s amazing that they’ve they really never had one of the two They’ve never had enough of the great players without the goalending or they’ve never had they’ve never had the goalending to run it all the way through So you know what’s what what feels like the more likely path for them to break the drought because I think it’s the latter They have to try for it but they’ve got Taige and they’ve got Dalene and they’ve got you know for now they have Purka they have Tuck Like they have some good players and then they have a couple of great players but I don’t think they have enough great players for that to be the driving success for them Like I would bet you right now the more likely way this drought ends is one of their like a goalie is going to have a hot season because that’s typically how it goes But the odds that it would be one of these two I think I could totally see it being Levi but I just don’t know if that’s going to be four years from now or not And who’s got time for that i gotta wait 3 four years for the kid to do it That see that’s the thing where I’d like to see them separate that mentality from goalie because the patience and the well we believe in Samuelson we believe in these guys taking steps up for us They have deviated from that a little bit upfront right they trade for Mloud They signed Zucker Like there’s been a little bit of a shift towards no we need guys that can produce right now and can be good for us right now There has never been a single action that points to that at goalender though Not once That would be this year saying “I know we paid Lucan in but screw it I’m need to go get a goalie It’s going to help me right now I don’t care.” Here’s Jake Allen Two years 5 million Sure Total per he got he was under four last year He probably gets a raise He’s older Here’s three years 5 million Who cares we got to make it Yeah We got to put somebody out there that we can maybe trust if that’s I mean he’s the best guy in the free agency The most optimistic way I could take it is why does he talk the way he does about Lucan and Levi yesterday because if they don’t end up with that guy then they don’t want to look like they failed right y the the negative part of it is well they just won’t even try for a guy They they truly do believe no we’re good upl and Levi that’s going to work I I want to leave space for and maybe I’m a sucker for yeah I don’t think we have any needs like Bean’s going to say that going into a draft and then they draft exactly what we think you know well we love this group we love this group and then you’re going to draft somebody So I want to leave space for that where oh I’m very confident in these goalenders if this is who we go into the season with And then maybe they spend the next month trying to find somebody and then that’s what I mean right and if it doesn’t work out like all right well I said I was good and I’m going to be good

Jeremy and Joe continue to analyze the Buffalo Sabres as they had another controversial day on Tuesday. Jeremy points out that the Sabres best seasons by far in the drought were under head coach Don Granato, and after just two years Kevyn Adams decided he wasn’t good enough. They discuss what led GM Kevyn Adams to this decision, primarily his belief that Granato’s high flying style will not win games in the NHL. They discuss Adams’ steadfast belief that he knew what the team needed, while after hiring current head coach Lindy Ruff almost every aspect of the team has declined. They also spend some time discussing the Sabres goaltending.

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