Embarrassing Sabres Should Move On From Granato

On this episode of Talking Buffalo, Patrick Moran is joined in studio by longtime friend and recurring guest Tone Pucks to discuss some Buffalo Sabres & Bills topics, including the Sabres officially cementing 13 years without a playoff appearance as one of several reasons it’s time for the organization to fire head coach Don Granato.

After narrowly missing the playoffs last year the expectations for the Sabres were higher. In those regards as well many others, it’s been a huge disappointment. The guys discuss how much Granato, the current sixth-longest tenured head coach in the NHL deserves the blame for another faceplant of a regular season campaign—one that saw Buffalo got from third in the NHL in goals scored last year to 21st this year, on the heels of a power play ranked 29th in the league. Early sleepwalks to start games were a huge problem this season, as evidenced by the 29 times Buffalo’s given up two or more goals in the first period and just a 7-21-1 record in those games. That’s a direct indictment on Granato not having his team ready to play coming out of the locker room. There’s that, a seemingly big lack of accountability and a season-long inability to go on any sort of sustained positive run.

Of course, Granato deserving to get fired and it actually happening are two completely different things. Do Patrick and Tony have confidence in Terry Pegula to fire Granato when the season ends next week, even if he has to eat an entire Granato extension before it actually kicks in? Spoiler alert—not likely.

They also spend time talking Bills, even though Tone is completely disengaged from all the Stefon Diggs drama at this point. However, he has thoughts about a possible perception of Josh Allen’s work ethic while the guys discuss the possibility that much to the chagrin of most fans, the Bills don’t take a wide receiver with their first pick of the draft. That, why Tone blocked Patrick on Twitter and plenty more today.