BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Sabres fired coach Don Granato on Tuesday, making him the seventh coach to be ousted during what’s grown into an NHL-record 13-season playoff drought.
The move was announced by the team a day after the Sabres closed their season with a 4-2 win at Tampa Bay. They finished with a 39-37-6 record and had been eliminated from playoff contention last week.
Granato completed his third full season in Buffalo after taking over on an interim basis in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2021 season after Ralph Krueger was fired. The move comes with the 56-year-old Granato still having two seasons left on his contract, which featured an extension that kicked in to start next season.
He finishes with a record of 122-125-27 in Buffalo.
“I would like to thank Don for his time in Buffalo and commitment to the Sabres organization. He has been integral in the development of many of our players and has undoubtedly been the right coach to bring us to where we are now,” general manager Kevyn Adams said in a statement posted on the team’s website. “But I felt it was necessary to move in a different direction at this point in time. My expectation is to be a consistent contender and unfortunately that goal has not been met.”
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Granato helped the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team win the 1990 national championship. He scored 45 goals and added 43 assists during his Badgers career and served as one of the team’s captains during the 1990-91 season. He returned to Madison as an assistant coach under older brother Tony during the 2016-17 season.
The Sabres stumbled through a season in which the team won three straight games just twice and too often were unable to overcome slow starts.
This was not the expectation for a team that opened the season with Adams declaring the window of contention…
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