Buffalo Sabres Bad Decisions: Don Granato sitting Jost, Peterka in loss

Buffalo Sabres head coach Don Granato made two questionable changes to the lineup before Friday night’s loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. 

On paper, Victor Olofsson is the Buffalo Sabres fourth-best scorer, with 26 goals in 66 games. However, when you account for his empty-netters and the fact two of his last three goals occurred in garbage time, the number of meaningful goals he’s scored dips to somewhere around 20. Olofsson also happens to be a scoring specialist with no defense to his game.

So if you’re Don Granato, and your team had been outscored 41-26, and was 2-5-2 over its last nine games, then you have to ask the question that since Buffalo is already struggling defensively: Why in the world would you play a forward whose defense is marginal, at best?

Before the Sabres lost to the Flyers, they allowed, on average, 4.5 goals per game between February 26th and March 15th. Did you really think inserting Victor Olofsson and Vinnie Hinostroza in favor of Tyson Jost and J.J. Peterka was going to positively affect this team’s defensive struggles?

Don Granato contributed to the Buffalo Sabres sinking ship on Friday

As you know, I’m a huge fan of Don Granato, and he needs to be in town for at least another two seasons, as coaches of young hockey teams taking the job amidst a complete overhaul generally need that long to get them to play consistent hockey. But that doesn’t make him immune from my criticism when he very well deserves that criticism.

When your team is struggling defensively, starting Olofsson over Jost, who is one of your better defensive forwards, makes zero sense. And then you sit J.J. Peterka, who has been playing his best hockey all season. And….wait a minute….am I experiencing de ja vu, or didn’t we have this conversation in the not-so-distant past? Yeah, about ten days ago.

Why Granato thought sitting Peterka and Jost in favor of Olofsson and Hinostroza was beyond me. Until I crossed Granato’s excuse in this quote from Lance Lysowski of Buffalo News’ recap of the game:

"“Granato explained that the move was made because he doesn’t want to sit “capable” forwards for too long and saw a benefit in adding rested players against a heavy, tight-checking team like Philadelphia. ”  via Buffalo News"

Against a tight-checking team like Philadelphia, you don’t play Victor Olofsson and Vinnie Hinostroza, who have been your least aggressive forwards all season (15 combined hits). I can see the benefit of playing fresh legs, but against an aggressive team embracing the “spoiler” role like the Flyers, you need to match that aggression, and neither Olofsson nor Hinostroza do that.

Overall, it was yet another bad decision on Granato’s part. And until he stops making such rash and illogical decisions, the Buffalo Sabres are going to struggle.

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)

Source: Observations: A big day for the Sabres ends with bitter loss that hurts playoff hopes by Lance Lysowski, BuffaloNews.com