“Be Decisive. Be Aggressive. Be Assertive.” | Buffalo Sabres Don Granato Ahead Of Tilt With Sharks

“Be Decisive. Be Aggressive. Be Assertive.” | Buffalo Sabres Don Granato Ahead Of Tilt With Sharks

Chang that you called up C what what is the status on D and samon um d d be in samelson no Sam still in concussion protol um I don’t know exactly what we term it other than upper body right now uh so we had we weren’t in the building

Yesterday and we’ll get more this morning now um this morning was all preparation for the game for us uh and now as a as uh the medical team has time to reevaluate things I’ll get a report after flag just brought up so you guys can have this happen yeah yeah so he’ll

He’ll be he’ll be an extra today without a practice yesterday Don how do you go about preparing for an opponent that you obviously don’t see very often and um just different kind of team I guess yeah we haven’t seen him but you know the preparation for me is uh what can we

Take from last game that we need to be better you you know what were we good at that we need to to to replicate and what do we need to be better at and um you know teams in through the league first of all every team of the league is good

It’s the NHL and uh secondly um lots of teams have overlapping systems one two two here aggressive here not aggressive there and so you you you can get a feel obviously through a pres Scout of that but today like every other day is about us executing um we didn’t skate yesterday

Usually when the guys have a day off it’s takes until like the third drill in a practice or fourth drill before they actually look like they they wake up so that was my challenge to the group today uh do do what you need to do to get your

Body ready to go at puck drop um and uh uh again we reviewed clips from the other day where we need to be better and that is what we need to focus on today how executing what we need to do uh better in in the areas we need to be

Better need to get back to to play the way you know he’s he’s established himself over the years I guess his challenge is is uh has always been just consistency um and you know with him it’s it’s usually when he’s off it’s he can’t get himself back in the game as

Well um it’s not um you know when when he’s off it’s usually the the game it’s not a situation um so for him you know I thought when he came out uh the last game he played you know he wasn’t consistent at all through that game and

And the game before he you know he was he was dropping a little bit but he did have four or five games in a row really good um so you know you hope you pull him out you give him a breath uh he catches his breath and he can come back

In and Be steady through the whole game you know he’s got to be a steady reliable you know defending defenseman that can you know when he keeps things simple offensively he can be effective very effective there um but you got to do it consistently ly you can’t take any

Team lightly given where you are right now but this game and Wednesday are both kind of similar and you’re playing two opponents that are just brutal in the standings and having a brutal time of it what is the mentality you’re looking for from your team in both of these games be

Decisive be aggressive be assertive um command where you Comm command pressure um so all of the things that you want to do any night do them with authority you know you want to play with authority you want to play with PTI um you know assertive uh aggressive

Without being careless um you know guess the biggest challenge you would say when you think of different teams and would be focused and for us um how you know how can we not be focused that’s that’s obviously we we need it um every single day here forward so you know I don’t see

This as any different um yes it is what you’ve said a different opponent in a different situation but it’s with every team it’s about it’s about them it’s about us in this case and and what we have to do and we have to play we have to play our best every night we

Have to and that’s going to push us to get better and better and you know that nothing else can be a distraction I should I should probably say for the most part the last several games done you guys have really done a good job controlling possession what’s going to

Be the key to trans Translating that possession into high danger chances and getting to the inside well you know you’ll never get to the inside as much as you want to because no matter how much inside you you want more and more and more um we

You know we generated enough to score we didn’t score the other night right we had zero goals on whatever 15 18 chances whatever it may have been um you know and and I think our five on five numbers when you look at the league we’re top five scoring five on five so

It’s our our scoring is not gone anywhere our power play has that’s that’s hurt us um you know and then you know there’s a psyche to that you feel and I say those numbers because the psyche is we’ve been awful scoring this year when really we haven’t five on five

We’ve struggled on the power play um so you just I mean we’re doing good things and we’ll always keep demanding for better simple as that meeting today there’s ways to be better ways to to create more chances and do things that would convert help us convert more goals so

We’ll keep pushing that initiative Don you talked about the idea of being decisive and being aggressive in the Act of Killing plays sometimes if you’re over aggressive you can overplay the puck how do you manage that uh you do manage it um obviously film communication it’s a process uh but

You’d much rather make an error as as a coach you’d much rather have your player Mak an error being a aggressive than passive um but you know if all these teams are playing it right there’s layers of support I mean uh the next layer should be behind and reloading

Behind on every team that you play they so it allows their primary player closest to the puck to be aggressive if you make a mistake you’ve probably Jarred the player enough that your second guy is going to be able to close him if you missed him you know and

That’s pretty much around the league I’d say every team is you know it’s it’s not even a system thing it’s um you know when your team plays aggressive that means the next four players away from the puck are reloading to support defensively so even if you bot it the next layer’s

There yeah that’s a good point um who would you like whoever you like sure the coach I mean who who would you like O’s in that today yeah so talked about before uh in the league that turnarounds and deadlines and quick turns are normal you have to get used to

The NHL schedule um with the snow this weekend the game being moved up an hour just how did that impact maybe normal operations for the last 36 hours well we’ve had a lot of lot of hockey we have we would have gone nine days without a day off or without a rest day

Uh which is a lot so you’re faced with yesterday and is it a curse is it a blessing you don’t know until today right till the game but they they were in need of some rest as well and uh rest and recovery so the good of it is they

Got more rest and Recovery which which they hadn’t had and probably wouldn’t had if we skated yesterday so you know what that means uh you never know till the puck drops um but as I said when you have a day off I know uh players come back they’re a little lethargic the

First few drills of practice and and um you know you can’t afford to have that happen when you’re playing a game so um we’ve got to combat against that

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