Don Granato should be the Sabres number one coaching choice

One of the main questions that the Buffalo Sabres need to address before we reach next season is who will be their next head coach. The end of Ralph Krueger’s time in Buffalo came in the middle of last season amidst some awful play. As a result, Buffalo promoted Don Granato to be their interim head coach for the rest of the season until they conducted a legitimate coaching search. But Granato proved that he should be the clear favorite to land the job.

Obviously, the Sabres need to do their due diligence and interview other candidates for the position. We have heard names such as Bruce Boudreau, Rikard Gronborg, and Greg Carvel circulating as potential hires, along with interim head coach Don Granato.

Although there are some potentially good coaching candidates available to Buffalo at the moment, it would be a missed opportunity to move on from someone that is already familiar with the roster and helped them improve at the end of last year as Granato did.

We all saw how unwatchable the Sabres were for most of last season. However, once Granato took over after Krueger, Buffalo almost immediately became more competitive. After the coaching change, the most impressive thing we saw was how much better some of the younger players on the Sabres roster performed.

We saw Tage Thompson play some of the best hockey we have seen from him in Buffalo under Granato’s coaching. Likewise, Casey Mittelstadt played by far his best hockey in his entire career after the Sabres made their coaching change. Granato obviously fit the coaching style that favored the younger players on the Sabres roster, and they benefitted a lot from it.

The Sabres will not rush this decision, which is the correct move. But given what they saw from Granato acting as the head coach last season, Buffalo should be more than willing to give him the job.