The Sabres extended two of their own today as head coach Don Granato received a two-year extension believed to be worth just shy of $2 million per season, while 22-year-old defenseman Mattias Samuelsson received a 7-year, $30 million contract.

These are speculative-type deals from Kevyn Adams and ownership as both Samuelsson and Granato haven’t necessarily earned the money yet, but there are strong indications that they could over the coming years. It’s an interesting about-face from the previous management strategy of waiting until the last moment to strike a deal. That technique often saw the Sabres pinball from crisis to crisis as contracts neared expiration (see: Sam Reinhart, Jeff Skinner, Jake McCabe, Linus Ullmark and more).

There have been indications already this offseason that the Sabres are going to take a more proactive approach as they signed center Tage Thompson to a 7-year, $50 million-dollar compact, and today’s moves further illustrate that shift in philosophy.

We’ll get to Samuelsson in a minute, but Granato's extension deserves some attention first as the coach’s new contract fell into the background today while NHL twitter made lazy jokes about Samuelsson having 0 NHL goals in 54 games.

Granato is entering his second full season behind the Sabres bench and has amassed a .456 win percentage over 110 games since taking over as interim head coach in the spring of 2020. The man nicknamed Donnie Meatballs has made plenty of headway during his tenure as he’s resurrected the careers of Jeff Skinner and Kyle Okposo, while also successfully developing guys like Tage Thompson, Rasmus Dahlin and Dylan Cozens. It certainly seems like he has things heading in the right direction.

The interesting wrinkle in this contract extension, though, is that his current contract doesn’t expire until after the 2023-24 season, meaning the Sabres could have simply waited until after this season to see if they still want to commit to Granato after having more than two years of him behind the bench.

After all, no head coach Sabres head coach has made it past year two since Lindy Ruff. Ron Rolston, Ted Nolan, Dan Bylsma, Phil Housley and Ralph Krueger were all fired in two years or less.

This extension is a vote of confidence, sure, but it could also be more than that, and could speak to the kind of forward-thinking approach we haven’t seen from the blue and gold in a while. What follows will read as a wild hypothetical but stay with me: If the Sabres somehow shock the hockey world this season and make the post-season dance, Granato would be a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as the coach of the year in the NHL, and would almost certainly win it as no one has the Sabres landing a playoff spot this season. That likely goes for next year as well.

So in this hypothetical situation where the Sabres shock everyone and clinch a wildcard spot while everyone thought they’d be bad or at best, mediocre, Granato would enter the final deal of his contract having won the coach of the year award. This would do two things: firstly, it would drastically raise the price tag on signing Granato to an extension, and secondly, it would allow other teams to enter the discussion to sign Granato at the conclusion of the season.

Sure, this seems like a long shot, and it almost certainly is, but from an organizational standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to eliminate that potentiality and lock down their coach at a lower price now in order to avoid a scenario where he either costs wildly more later, or he walks for nothing. This of course famously happened with Ted Nolan the first time he coached the Sabres.

For Granato, this deal means cashing out some sweat equity gained by rehabilitating careers and in turn, he’s opted not to bet on making a big pay day if all the cards fall his way. The same could be said about Mattias Samuelsson.

The internet had a lot of jokes today about the Sabres giving $30m to a player who doesn’t have an NHL goal, but those jokes were almost all made by people who don’t watch the Sabres, much less pay attention to Samuelsson. The 2018 32nd-overall pick is the kind of hard-hitting, shot-blocking, stay-at-home defenseman they haven’t had since Jake McCabe left for Chicago in free agency in the summer of 2021. On a team full of offensively minded players like Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power and Jacob Bryson, they desperately need the defensive conscience of a guy like Samuelsson.

He also pairs incredibly well Dahlin as the two can switch sides and play the right or the left as needed. The 6’4” defenseman is built in the mold of an Erik Cernak, who, while not a household name by any means, is an important part to the success of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Sabres recognized this and opted to buy all of Samuelsson’s prime as he will be 30 years old at the conclusion of his new contract. The Sabres now have cost assurance for Samuelsson and can make other plans while knowing they have a top-4 defenseman locked up until 2030.

The $4.28m cap hit over that time will likely look like a bargain in short order, and will - at worst - be a minor inconvenience as the cap begins to rise following the pandemic. Even if Samuelsson doesn’t maintain his ascension to top-4 defenseman status, he would still be the kind of rugged defenseman a team would want on their bottom pair. Again, that’s a worst-case scenario and his current career trajectory looks much better than that. It’s more likely that Samuelsson will be underpaid during his prime mid-20s years in the NHL.

And that’s why both the Granato and Samuelsson deals make sense for all parties involved: risk and cost are balanced for the team, while the player and coach are given a guaranteed pay day. It’s a much more sound strategy than the panicked approach the team has had in the past.

Join the Discussion: » 1323 Comments » Post New Comment

» Introducing New Sabres Writer: Bradley

» That’s All, Folks!

» Tracking the Sabres: Devon Levi

» Levi Shines in Debut, Sabres Top Rangers

» Storylines To Watch As The Season Winds Down