Don Granato is no longer the coach of the Buffalo Sabres. Craig Berube is the big-name coach out on the market but my belief is the Sabres need to dig deeper. By digging deeper I mean they need a coach with a deep connection with some of their players. That guy is Seth Appert.

I covered Seth when he was with RPI and eventually the NTDP. I’m not going to get into the nuts and bolts of the Rochester Americans, because I haven’t seen that much of them this season, but their record is good so that won’t hurt Appert at all. 

Back in 2018, when Appert U18 won the Five Nations Tournament, who accepted the trophy? Mattias Samuelsson. He was the captain of the team. That team had Jack Hughes, Spencer Knight, Joel Farabee, and Cam York to name a few. One of the assistants of that team was Rand Pecknold, who won a National Championship with Quinnipiac University.

I’ve interviewed a lot of players who were coached by Appert and they all gave me glowing reports.  When the Sabres head coach was Ralph Krueger, Appert was coaching some of the teams’ young talent in Rochester and I heard great things from numerous people. Jack Quinn and Jacob Bryson played for him. 

When the Sabres hired Appert I figured they would start drafting a few more players from the program. While that didn’t happen, Appert certainly knew a few of their USHL draft picks and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was asked about some of those players as well.

I’m sure the Sabres will do an exhaustive coaching search, but I think Appert has to be at the top of the list and I think they’ll find that a lot of the young players like playing for him. That’s not to say they didn’t with Granato, but Appert is a smart coach and players trust him. Young players, and let’s face it the Sabres need a mentor as a coach possibly more than a bigger name with a longer resume.