BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The Buffalo Sabres fired head 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 39-27-6 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. And 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.
The team also announced the firing of assistant coach Jason Christie and video coordinator Matt Smith.
The Sabres stumbled through a season in which the team won three straight games just twice and were too often unable to overcome slow starts.
This was not the expectation for a team that opened the season with GM Kevyn Adams declaring the window of contention as being open. The blossoming hopes were generated by the Sabres missing the playoffs by two points last season.
The Sabres' playoff drought is tied with the New York Jets as being the longest active drought in North America’s four major professional sports.
This season, the Sabres were undone by injuries to key players, goaltending inconsistencies, a front-office decision to add more youth to what was already the NHL’s youngest roster and Granato making the questionable change in coaching philosophy to have the Sabres switch to a more defensive style.
A season after the free-wheeling Sabres finished third in the NHL with 293 goals, Buffalo’s production dropped to currently rank 22nd with 244 with two days left in the regular season. After finishing 26th in allowing 297 goals last season, the Sabres currently rank 11th in allowing 243.
Poor starts played a key factor in sinking Buffalo’s season. The Sabres have allowed a league-worst 97 goals in the first period, while scoring just 67, which ranks 22nd.
Granato declined to address his status following the game at Tampa Bay, by saying he wanted to focus on the outing.
Last week, Granato said, his sole focus every season was improving the Sabres.
“I have to do my job every day. And it’s to help this team and this franchise get better every day. That’s my focus every day. That’s my drive every day,” he said. So I don’t know, you know, any other way to do things. When I first got in this position, even as the interim, I wasn’t trying to become the next head coach. There’s a job that needs to be done. My focus is on that. It has to be on that.”
The Sabres now find themselves in an all-too familiar position in launching yet another coaching search. Granato was the team’s sixth coach since Lindy Ruff was fired two months into the lockout-shortened 2012 season.
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Buffalo Sabres head coach Don Granato, center top, looks on during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Washington Capitals, Thursday, April 11, 2024, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)
Buffalo Sabres coach Don Granato gestures during the third period of the team's NHL hockey game against the Florida Panthers, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Sunrise, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) — A former teacher at New Hampshire’s youth detention center testified Monday that she reported suspicious bruises on at least half a dozen teenage boys in the 1990s, including the former resident who filed a landmark lawsuit against the state.
Brenda Wouters, who taught social studies at the Sununu Youth Services Center for 35 years, was the final witness called by David Meehan, who is seeking to hold the state accountable for physical, sexual and emotional abuse he says he suffered as a teen. Since he went to police in 2017, 11 former state workers have been arrested, and more than 1,100 former residents of the Manchester facility have filed lawsuits alleging six decades of abuse.
Wouters, who retired in 2022, said during the civil trial that she remembered Meehan growing sullen and withdrawn during his three years at what was then called the Youth Development Center. He had a black eye twice, she said. Another time, she asked him to lift up his shirt after she caught a glimpse of bruising and saw a “rainbow” of bruises along his torso.
Other teens showed up to school with marks on their necks and arms, Wouters said. The whites of one boy’s eyes were “beet red,” she said.
“The reddest eyes I’ve ever seen short of watching a Dracula film,” she said.
Wouters also described teens telling her about being forced to fight. Staff pitted stronger kids against more fragile ones.
“Then they would encourage those kids to go ahead and fight with each other almost to the death until whomever was being the loser would then comply with whatever the staff wanted,” she said.
Wouters said when she approached residential staff, they brushed her off. She said she told her boss, and on multiple occasions, called the state Division of Children, Youth and Families, but there was no follow-up that she saw.
Under questioning from the state’s attorney, however, Wouters acknowledged that she never witnessed abuse, nor did she file any written complaints. Shown progress reports from the 1990s, she also acknowledged that Meehan was only in her class during the spring of 1996, a time when he does not allege abuse. But she said she would’ve still interacted with him after that.
Lawyers for the state will begin presenting their side on Tuesday, the trial's 15th day. In opening arguments earlier this month, they argued the state is not liable for the actions of “rogue” employees, and in questioning Meehan’s witnesses, suggested he is lying to get money. The state also contends he waited too long to file his lawsuit. The statute of limitations for such lawsuits is three years from the date of injury, though there are exceptions in cases when victims were not aware of its link to the wrongful party.
After the jury was dismissed for the day Monday, Assistant Attorney General Brandon Chase asked the judge to issue a verdict in the state’s favor based on the statute of limitations argument.
Judge Andrew Schulman denied that request, saying the jury will decide. Though he said it might be a “close call” as to when Meehan realized as an adult he might have a claim against the state, he said it was unreasonable to believe he made that connection while at the facility or soon after. Schulman said when he visited the facility with jurors at the start of the trial, he spent some time in Meehan’s former room, looking out the window.
“It occurred to me while I was there, this is the kid’s eye view,” he said. “You don’t have a very wide view of the world.”
FILE - The Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, N.H., stands among trees, Jan. 28, 2020. A former teacher at New Hampshire’s youth detention center testified Monday, April 29, 2024, that she reported suspicious bruises on at least half a dozen teenage boys in the 1990s, including the former resident who filed a landmark lawsuit against the state. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
