Don Granato is headed back behind an NHL bench, and this time it will be in Columbus.
According to Aaron Portzline of The Athletic, the Blue Jackets are hiring Granato as an assistant coach. He’ll work under returning head coach Rick Bowness and join assistants Trent Vogelhuber and Jared Boll on the staff.
Granato’s most recent NHL bench work came with the Buffalo Sabres, where he moved from assistant to head coach in the middle of the 2021 season after Ralph Krueger was fired. He spent a little over a season as an assistant before taking over the top job.
Buffalo didn’t make the Stanley Cup Playoffs in any of his four seasons at the helm, though the club finished above .500 in each of his final two years. Granato went 122-125-27 during his time in Western New York.
Since leaving Buffalo, the 58-year-old has worked as an analyst on television and radio. He also coached the United States at the IIHF Men’s World Championship this past spring, when the team fell to Canada in the quarterfinals.
Granato’s NHL coaching résumé also includes time as an assistant with the Chicago Blackhawks under Joel Quenneville and with the St. Louis Blues in 2005-06, which was his first coaching job in the league.
He also has a Columbus connection. Granato played two years of professional hockey with the Columbus Chill of the ECHL from 1991 to 1993, and later served as the team’s head coach from 1997 to 1999.
In Other News...
Sabres Just Made A Goalie Decision Fans Will Debate For Years
Devon Levis time in Buffalo is over, and the move gives the Sabres another chapter in a goaltending conversation that has already stretched on long enough for fans to develop strong opinions. The 23-year-old was shipped to Edmonton along with a 2028 seventh-round pick in a deal that brought back the Oilers 2028 third-rounder, a modest return that speaks to how the market viewed a goalie with upside but an unsettled place in the NHL.
For Buffalo, the deal closes the book on a player many still saw as worth waiting on, even if the path to becoming the No. 1 option never really opened cleanly here. Edmonton, meanwhile, is betting that Levi can keep growing alongside Tristan Jarry and eventually become part of its long-term answer in goal, which only adds another layer to what Sabres fans will likely keep debating for years. [Read more 🡒]
Sabres Fans Will Hate Who Buffalo Was Asked To Give Up
A recent layer to the Connor Hellebuyck trade chatter puts a familiar Buffalo name right in the middle of it. Reports indicate the Jets initially asked for Sabres winger Zach Benson in those discussions, a telling sign of how highly Winnipeg viewed the young forward and how seriously Buffalo had to take the possibility of parting with a core piece. Benson has quickly become one of the organizations most important building blocks, and the Sabres have been clear enough in their stance that the conversation never really moved far beyond the opening ask.
For Buffalo, the appeal of exploring a high-end goalie fit against the cost was obvious, but so was the danger of weakening a roster that still needs its best young talent to keep maturing. Benson already looks like the kind of player teams spend years trying to find, which is why his name surfacing in the first place will not sit well with Sabres fans. The goaltending side of the equation only sharpens the debate, because any serious pursuit of Hellebuyck comes with the usual questions about age, price, and whether a contender is wise to pay that much for a netminder at all. [Read more 🡒]