“It’s About Grind” | Buffalo Sabres Coach Don Granato After 4-1 Loss To Boston Bruins

“It’s About Grind” | Buffalo Sabres Coach Don Granato After 4-1 Loss To Boston Bruins

Coost saers power play is dead last in the league um your your opponent tonight is top 10 would you take anything from that team and and apply it to your own team as power play and a penalty kill yeah I I would say tonight um you know

The first I up until the first goal first four minutes of pressure and and uh execution for us you know we we had some grind to our game uh and we didn’t have that cons consistently we had it right out of the gate we we we didn’t

Have enough grind and both special teams tonight so you can say what you the obvious about the power play but you we don’t give up three penalty kill goals it’s a it’s a tight game all the way through three goals on the penalty kill um which has been which has been

Somewhat good um but it was the grind it was it was not willing to grind enough through the course of that game uh and then you’re going to have you’re going to be challenged in any area uh in that point and that’s what that’s the case

When did you learn about t uh just this early this afternoon is there something that could be a while or is it just for this game no I think it’s going to be just for today just for today Don I know injuries obviously have an impact on on the power

Play but you know over the last it’s been a year now where the inconsistency has been an issue for you know both units when you look at it is the problem structural is it what do you think it’s going to take just to get consistency because I mean we know how important you

Know the Special Teams and power plays are tonight was was what I said fits a lot of it grind pucks to the net guys to the net um you know I do feel uh you know Jack Jack Quinn is going to be a help with with that with with with

Adding more to it um but um it obviously is is not where we want it to be it’s needs to be better but I would say the grind factor is something that uh will be bringing uh more emphasis to do you get the sense that that it’s too

Predictable especially with the with the top unit when everybody’s looking for Tage to they’re just looking at the flanks we need to we need to take bux to the net better in from different areas so if you want to call it too predictable that’s that’s it’s a way to

Say it we need we need to do some things differently coach speaking of injuries the Sabers last season around this time was averaging about three and a half goals this year it’s roughly around three with all the injuries and having a rookie go sender what can the Savers do

As far scoring to help out you know we we want to play with Pace we didn’t tonight and like I mentioned you fact during that compete I talked tonight about grind uh when when we do that and we can we can establish our game we didn’t do that tonight we didn’t

Establish our game uh when we did it was just just at the outset for a few minutes uh and again too many lulls so I think the scoring will come uh full full bore when we can Elevate the pace and you know we’ve done that intermittently

Um we have to do that consistently it seemed like many of your good scoring chances either went wide or over the top of the net is there any reasons for that that you could put your finger on no Paul I mean it’s they’re there they’re they got looks and they miss the

Net you know I guess you’d have to that’d be a question for them I felt we didn’t have enough of a shot mentality to begin with so possibly looking for another play before you shot and that little bit of hesitation and um now you’re missing in that I mean that could

Be could be one component but again I just didn’t think we were direct enough tonight um and you know we were in increments but and those showed you know that’s how you have to play for for for as much as you can of 60 minutes right um and and uh wasn’t

Enough okay he took a shot right uh he seems to be okay yeah he and he’s and he’s an ultra competitor which you can see um so great job by him how frustrating were the coverage issues on the first two goals uh the first one was uh the second

One was a first second was a power play or penalty kill goal first one was um we had we could have just chipped it right out to a guy slashing across and we didn’t we we went back with it off our feet uh and then um you know a situation

Where you have that turnover as we talked about it’s you have a chance to defend and we chased after the turnover we we can’t we went out of position um when we should have had should have held our ground a little bit more so the first one first penalty kill goal and

The second one of the game uh inside pass from outside we we actually had a decent penalty kill until then uh and let a a pass from behind the net come inside which which shouldn’t happen you think be deficits a lot of just mental like you know the first goes in it is

Now it’s it’s a it’s it’s something now that you mentally have to just get over and and move on you got to move on Fast and you know you have opportunity the next day and the next day out and you can’t have drag from what uh you didn’t

Do or didn’t get done and you know that obviously is a challenge um that uh you got to move on quick and and obviously uh with the with gaining the experience of what you had but you got to move mentally quick on special because just been off

For four days I mean you could I’m sure guys didn’t feel good uh you know on both sides of the puck tonight uh they didn’t feel like themselves so I mean who knows but but regardless you you know we want we want a lot more intent

There and attack there you again you saw in spurts um you know we we there’s urgency when you pull the goalie at the end of the game you got open net we saw more urgency because of that we need to see more urgency before that and um so you

Know yeah you miss Nets or whatever you have a three-day layoff but you know you can still we could still have played with more urgency through the course of the game a lot of time up in the season but to make this team a contender what

Is the things that need to change the most as far as this team is concerned right now we need to play with pace and we need to string as much uh you know like I said willingness to grind and direct game direct over the line to the

Net shot to the net track a rebound very we play direct and with Pace the power play again just to Circle back on that you’re talking about taking a look at everything what about are what are your thoughts in general about how they’ve been drawn up in terms of uh getting

Production we we’ve had Personnel that’s coming back into the lineup obviously um and and we’ll look at that and and there needs to be Personnel changes and and uh different looks at that again we’ve talked a lot about even you know re re refocusing on strategy per se

Um mentioned to Paul more of a shot mentality more of an attack mentality more of a direct uh direct than net mentality so we’ve we’ve began discussions on that and that process I think it’s it’s a process that’s under way as a coach when you do have a power

Play that’s struggling you know your expertise forwards power play do you get more involved you know especially when when you do have a power play this this at this at this point yes uh because of that because we want we want more and and and we need more so yeah you shift

Obviously is a you know you those are things that are delegated through staff and you know at certain points you need more manpower on it and I think that’s where we’re at coach what did you see different from Boston this go round than the last go round when it was in Boston

You know not nothing really different from them they’re very consistent um and um again we when we played there we played with such a high level of urgency that uh that we we didn’t have tonight and that’s the difference difference was us tonight there another popping off the skate tonight um obviously mistakes

Happen at lightning speed but is there any desire for maybe more situational awareness especially down low in the cre you know you you’d love to not have a guy in the crease so you know that’s probably where the where the mistake was but uh you know as you mentioned things

Happen Split Second um you know and and bad bad breaks happen you have to overcome them so we didn’t overcome

Buffalo Sabres head coach Don Granato spoke with the media after the team’s 4-1 loss to the Boston Bruins on December 27, 2023. Erik Johnson scored the loan goal. Granato talked about special teams, Rasmus Dahlin injury update, and more.

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