Call it Round Two of the Granato family rivalry Monday night in KeyBank Center.
Don Granato, of course, will be behind the Sabres' bench for their game against the Seattle Kraken, the first trip to Buffalo for the NHL's newest expansion team. His sister, Hockey Hall of Famer and Kraken scout Cammi Granato, is likely to be checking in on the action from her Vancouver home.
At the end of a four-game Western trip and with the added mental stress of the long-awaited Jack Eichel trade going down earlier in the day, the Sabres had one of their worst collapses of the season when they visited Seattle on Nov. 5. Holding a 2-1 lead late in the second period, Buffalo yielded a natural hat trick to Jordan Eberle and lost 5-2 in a game that saw them get outshot 38-21.
Jordan Eberle scored a pair of third-period goals to complete the first hat trick in Kraken history and Seattle overpowered the Sabres before a roaring sellout crowd.
"I just wanted it to be competitive. We didn't really ask each other about it," Cammi Granato said by phone. "Of course, we want our teams to win, but it goes deeper than that, right? I root for Don and my family. That's just the way we are. It was competitive fun. I've never been in a position exactly like that."
So did Cammi take that win as a first notch in the family's newest NHL competition?
"We didn't play good enough for her to gloat. After that one, I think she was more worried about us than anything," Don said. "That was one of our worst games. Hopefully, that will be different this time around. She knows the ups and downs of the sport. She would not be doing that in any fashion, anyway. That's not her style."
Cammi Granato, 50, is one of the most iconic women's hockey players in history, joining Canadian great Angela James in 2010 to become the first women elected to the Hall of Fame. She led the 1998 gold-medal Team USA squad in Nagano, Japan, and earned a silver medal in Salt Lake in 2002. She also owns 10 medals in world championships. She remains the all-time leading scorer for the U.S. women's team with 343 points.
Just last week, she was named to a term on the Hall's 18-member selection committee, joining Canadian legend Cassie Campbell-Pascall as the only women currently in the group.
"It's very, very exciting for all of us as family members, just knowing the work she's put in," said Don Granato, 54. "This is someone that's gone through the pressure of being an Olympian, going through tryout camps, trying to make teams and battle through injuries. We watched her compete and go through the highs and lows, physical challenges, the mental challenges. To see her still getting rewards from her work is great. I'm happy for her. It's a very exciting honor."
"It's an incredible honor to know I can have an impact on both the women's and men's game," Cammi Granato said. "I lived and breathed the game since I can remember. I dreamed of being on the Chicago Blackhawks and then finding out that I couldn't was a really devastating thing. ... When I was in inducted into the Hall of Fame, I remember feeling this feeling of like, 'Wow, I just didn't know it was possible.' In my role with the Kraken right now, I'm current in the game and I have been around the game enough to know the past players, as well."
'He was a coach when he was like 10'
Saturday's 3-2 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings in Little Caesars Arena left the Sabres 1-3-1 in the last five games and 8-10-3 overall.
Cammi Granato said the family was thrilled the Sabres gave Don Granato a chance as the interim coach in the spring and that he got the job on a permanent basis over the summer, culminating a long ride through the minor leagues to finally get an NHL bench of his own.
"You have to understand that I look back and I think, 'He was a coach before he knew he was a coach,' " she said with a laugh. "He was a coach when he was, like, 10 years old."
Cammi Granato recalled Don helping to tape the floors for the family ministicks tournament in the basement of their suburban Chicago home. Don would stencil the name of the tournament and brackets on paper and help brother Tony go in the backyard and figure out uses of training equipment Tony would bring home from USA Hockey camps. Don would encourage everyone to stickhandle on a slide board like the one US speed skater Eric Heiden trained on for the 1980 Olympics. He'd even splice together VHS tapes of old Wayne Gretzky videos for everyone to watch.
"There's just so much excitement for him in this position because he's been in the game for so many years and has had the ability to do it," Cammi said. "I was always such a huge advocate for Don, because I knew as a player what he gave me and knew what he gave his players.
"And it was so unique, and so powerful, because who doesn't want to play for a coach that brings out the best in your abilities? And that's Don's strength. He really does communicate well, and he's fair and he's always studying the game and learning more."
The big picture is more than you could have reasonably expected at this stage, Mike Harrington says.
While Cammi isn't surprised Don reached the NHL as a head coach, the Sabres' boss isn't surprised his sister cracked through the game's top league, either.
"She's put a lot of work in both the physical and emotional sides of it and really taken a lot of pride to educate herself," he said. "Even growing up, she was youngest of the four of us playing hockey. She was very inquisitive, asked a lot of questions and looked at things from two or three different sides. It's helped her gain a lot of experience. So to see her be able to use all of that now as something as exciting as this team and franchise in Seattle is really neat."
The Kraken are 7-13-1, but come into Buffalo on a roll, winners of three of their last four games, in which they've conquered Washington, Carolina and Florida. The 4-1 win Saturday over the Panthers ended Florida's 11-game home winning streak to start the season, one shy of setting a new NHL record.
"There were some players that were given up to Vegas four years ago that teams probably wouldn't make those decisions again on. Fool me once, that whole thing," Cammi Granato said. "Realistically, we were an expansion team. And typically it takes a while for expansion teams. It's hard. Everybody wants to see the team win. It is a process. We have great people and great leaders and we'll be OK. It's just weathering the storm."
Building a team
When the Kraken hired Cammi Granato in 2019, she became the first female scout in the NHL. The pandemic forced the Kraken to prepare for the expansion draft much more on the fly, through video call meetings. But there were unexpected benefits, too.
"We actually were on a lot of Zoom meetings with other people outside of hockey, with other parts of the organization," she said. "And so we got to know the ins and outs of how the (Climate Pledge Arena) was being built and and how we're going to work with memberships for the fans. We were kind of seeing all sides of it, everything to bring a team together."
Seattle Kraken scout Cammi Granato, left, greets Brandon Tanev after he was introduced as a player for the Kraken on July 21 during the NHL expansion draft in Seattle.
Calgary's Jacob Markstrom has an NHL-high five shutouts in his first 15 games.
There were literally hundreds of expansion drafts held by the Kraken front office and their scouts, all of whom had software to mock the selections on their own at any time. From more than a year on paper and laptops, to participating in the actual draft in Seattle in July, seeing the inaugural season start has been quite a process.
"It's pretty surreal. I think it hit me the most an opening night in Seattle, just sitting there with the other other scouts and kind of taking it all in," she said. "All the reports that we wrote, and all the meetings and mock trials, the draft and having this team get on the ice was amazing. And then seeing (president/CEO) Tod Leiweke speak at the game was the most emotional because I could hear it in his voice and all the vision that he had."
Earlier in the day, the club had Granato don a jersey and raise the team flag at the top of the Space Needle, the city's signature tower located down the street from the arena.
"One of the coolest experiences, honestly," she said. "You're climbing up ladders to get up there. And you're literally on the top of the building. Amazing views. It was just incredible. It was invigorating, the whole thing, super memorable."
Cammi Granato's career is filled with memories of the highest heights, so Don Granato said an NHL spot for her should be no surprise.
"I can remember going into a lot of youth rinks and parents and kids on the other team were yelling to go after her," he said. "She was always the target and she accepted that and thrived on it," he said. "She enjoys the competition. I think that's why she's back in it. She missed the competition and competing."
Monday's schedule
Both teams were off Sunday after completing back-to-backs Saturday and will skate Monday morning in advance of the game, which is part of the NHL's Hockey Fights Cancer Night series that will feature pregame tributes to those afflicted by the disease.
The Sabres have converted Rochester center Mark Jankowski's AHL contract to an NHL deal at one year and $750,000, making him eligible for his debut with the club on Monday. They sent Arttu Ruotsalainen to the Amerks. Jankowski, 27, had five goals and 12 points in 13 games for Rochester. In 253 career NHL games with Pittsburgh and Calgary, he has 40 goals and 35 assists.
