Assistant Don Granato takes over as interim coach (with an emphasis on the interim tag). Development coaches Matt Ellis and Dan Girardi are interim assistants.
Sabres had a terrible season. The good thing is they finally booted Coach Ralph Krueger to the curb following a 12 game losing streak. They then proceeded to lose another 6 games under interim coach Don Granato before he managed to right the ship. Since then they've been around a .500 team.
That's actually pretty good, considering Granato hasn't had Jack Eichel who's out for the season with a lower body injury, their top veteran stay-at-home defenseman, Jake McCabe, and the Sabres are on their 6th goaltender.
Their original goalie tandem, Linus Ullmark and Carter Hutton, are both out. Linus was in and out but just as he was doing better he suffered another injury. He's back on the ice but may or may not play. Hutton has been out due to a combination of injury and personal matters. So their goalie corps has been:
- Linus Ullmark
- Carter Hutton
- Dustin Tokarski - AHL callup
- Jonas Johansson - a prospect they gave up on and traded
- Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen - a prospect, got a few games but then got injured
- Michael Houser - a career ECHLer who is currently their starter
- Stefanos Lekkas - signed to a PTO contract just to fill the bench as backup
Houser has been a feel-good story. A 28-year-old rookie, he became a goalie because he was born with 2 clubbed feet, had several surgeries but still didn't skate well enough to play anything else. He's played two games in the NHL, both against the playoff-bound NY Islanders.
He faced 84 shots in those 2 games, allowed only 5 goals, and won both of them. Last night he got the team to the shootout where he stoned all three shooters he faced to get the win.
Granato is a decidedly different coach than Krueger. He has the team playing fast and loose. The East Division probably has more top tier teams than any other division, so they haven't done terribly well under Granato, but they
look better. In the absence of Eichel, Granato typically puts all his veteran forwards (Jeff Skinner, Sam Reinhart and Victor Olofsson) on the top line, then constructed a second line of players that were considered prospects coming into the season but are now fulltime NHLers: Rasmus Asplund, Casey Mittelstadt and Tage Thompson.
Then there's a line of kids/players seeing their first NHL action- Anders Bjork, Dylan Cozens and Arttu Ruotsalainen, and then a 4th line of spare parts. The key here is that he's giving very young players increasing minutes and responsibility and
it's working. He tinkers a bit with those lines; for instance Cozens had a couple blah games so he moved over to the wing and Granato put vet Riley Sheahan out to center that line.
The other surprise is that, although he came up as a center, Samson Reinhart has been playing wing, primarily with center Jack Eichel. With Eichel's injury, Granato moved Reino to center and he's actually doing very well. In this pandemic-shortened season he's tied his career high with 25 goals. A good chunk of those have come with a wicked wrist shot that he hasn't previously displayed to this extent. Without Eichel, Reinhart is actually better.
This is all very interesting, and worrying. Assuming the team would stay the same, just that injured players would return, it's easy to picture a team with a heavy infusion of youth, led by Reino and Eichel. But with NHL contracts what they are, there may be reason to move at least one of Reino and Eichel. In Reino's case, he's a restricted free agent for the coming year but unrestricted after that. To lock him up for a longer term may put a cash crunch on the Sabres in the future. Considering the season he's had, the Sabres might be able to get handsome return if they trade him now.
Eichel is on a long term contract, but his no-movement clause will kick in after this summer, so if they're going to move him, this is the time. The team has a lot invested in him and when healthy he's clearly their best forward, but if they move him now the return may be diminished by his current injury situation.
I haven't even touched on the defense, but there's a similar youth movement going on there, and the future is very bright.
All this has happened under interim coach Don Granato. Has he done enough to earn the permanent spot? Or is their uptick a case of fools gold after playing for such a terrible coach at the beginning of the season? I would be comfortable with keeping him on, or trying to do better (Gerard Gallant?) if they can land the right coach.
So, just like the last 10 playoff-less seasons, the Sabres leaving us looking ahead to next year, hoping it's finally the year they are good again.
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