Buffalo Sabres: Don Granato correct to throw in hard practices

Buffalo Sabres head coach Don Granato is a master of knowing when to scale back on practice, and when to go full throttle. 

Roughly a month ago, the Buffalo Sabres were struggling through January, ultimately bottoming out at 3-5-1 at one point. Head coach Don Granato remedied the situation by scaling back the exhausted Sabres, and it resulted in a five-game winning streak and an overall seven-game points streak.

Now, Buffalo is on the losing end of the spectrum once more, suffering two blowout losses in a row and looking more like the Krueger-era Sabres lately. But coming off of a ten-day break, the Blue and Gold aren’t necessarily exhausted.

Knowing this, Granato didn’t scale back, but instead, went full throttle. And that should pay dividends for the upcoming road trip. The Sabres coach identified that while there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the strategy, his team’s overall grit and work ethic tanked.

Don Granato put the Buffalo Sabres through a tough practice on Sunday

Here’s a snippet of what Granato said:

"“The issue that we had (Saturday), it’s not going to be solved with strategy. It’s going to be solved with work ethic and that was the message before practice, that we were going to have probably our hardest practice of the year. It was right up there with it.” – via Buffalo News"

I’m sure many of us played organized sports as kids, or during middle school and high school. What happened in practice following a game when your team looked outright lazy? I’ll tell you my experience: There was nothing worse than sitting in class and dreading what’s in store for you in the upcoming practice later that day.

I’m sure the Sabres could relate on their plane ride to California. But at the same time, we all saw how lazy this team looked in Saturday’s loss to the Flames. At least in the final 40 minutes. And he also saw how lazy they looked early in Sunday’s practice, necessitating a change in lines, with a few conditioning drills to go along with it.

While it appears Granato may have switched up the lines for practice purposes only – Lance Lysowski of Buffalo News neither confirmed nor denied these would be the lines in Monday night’s contest, he did confirm that the line changes created the intensity he was looking for.

We will see tonight whether these changes go into effect. If they do, I’m not going to rush to judgment just yet. Let’s see how they mesh before making any preconceived notions that this game will result in a losing effort.

Article Source: Sabres notebook: Don Granato pushes players through ‘hardest’ practice of season by Lance Lysowski 

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