Dahlin, Thompson, Luukkonen have seen significant strides since time under Granato

No team has been better than the Buffalo Sabres over the last five weeks. Since December 9th, Buffalo has won 15 of 17 games and established themselves as an Eastern Conference playoff contender. Looking at their lineup, you can see the talent required to go on that type of hot streak. Tage Thompson is an elite NHL goal scorer capable of taking over games (he had a five-point night in Thursday’s 5-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens). Rasmus Dahlin is a former first-overall pick defenseman with rare skill and hockey sense. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is a big, athletic goaltender with second-round pedigree.

But those players have not always been what they are today. Don Granato, who coached each of them during his time as the Sabres’ bench boss from March 2021 to April 2024, can see how they’ve grown since their days together.

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by Granato to discuss the development of his former players in Buffalo.

Don Granato: I think of Tage Thompson, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, and Rasmus Dahlin. Those are three guys that were so young then and weathered all of this and had to go through all of this. You see them so much more mature. They’ve handled it the right way, and grown. It’s exciting to see them now, knowing where they were.

Like I say, Hutts was there as well to watch those days when I jumped in there as an interim. That was a bit scary. As a coach at the time I had coached 25 years, and you’re thinking, “Ok, this is your one shot.” If you look bad it looks like you don’t know how to coach and you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. To take over in that situation was daunting.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…