Reacting to the busy Opening Day Eve for the Buffalo Sabres

The day before their season opener, the Buffalo Sabres are busy. I recapped a busy day and give my reactions to what happened today.

We are on the eve of the Buffalo Sabres kicking off their 2022-2023 regular season against the Ottawa Senators at home. Before the Sabres start their season, they made some moves regarding a couple members of the team. First up, they gave head coach Don Granato a contract extension.

We don’t know the length of the contract but we do know that Granato is the Buffalo Sabres coach for the foreseeable future. Listen, if you’re a Sabres fan then you don’t need me to tell you how good of a coach Granato is.

Ever since he took as the coach two seasons ago, everyone on the Sabres roster has loved playing for him. In what was an absolutely brutal season in 2020-2021, Granato restored order and Buffalo was a little better at the end of that year.

Going into last season, there were question marks about Granato and if the team could do better. The answer to that question was a yes. Even though Buffalo finished with another losing record, they finished 5th in the Atlantic Division, and looked like a complete different team, specifically during the second half of last season.

Buffalo Sabres also extended Mattias Samuelsson

Granato was not the only member of the Sabres to get a contract extension. A little while after the Granato news, the team also gave a contract extension to defenseman Mattias Samuelsson.

I have to be honest with you, I was a little surprised with this one. Samuelsson had 0 goals and 12 assists in 54 games played with Buffalo last year according to NHL.com. A seven-year deal for a defenseman who’s going into his 3rd NHL season is something I didn’t expect.

I’m not going to talk about this contract yet because I want to see how Mattias performs but it’s pretty clear that general manager Kevyn Adams and Granato believe in the young Sabres defenseman.

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)