Granato Joins Bowness's Staff as Columbus Adds a Voice Who Knows What Losing Looks Like

Don Granato is now on Rick Bowness's staff in Columbus, added Wednesday as an assistant two years after Buffalo let him go. It's a modest transaction on paper — one more name on a coaching staff — but it fits the offseason pattern here. The Blue Jackets have been methodical about filling every gap that the late-season collapse exposed, and the coaching room was the one piece that hadn't been addressed yet.

Granato ran a Sabres team through a long rebuild, which means he has recent, firsthand experience managing young players who are capable of looking excellent for stretches and then going completely sideways. That's a useful résumé item for a Columbus staff inheriting Adam Fantilli, who generated 27 shots over the final 10 games last season and scored zero times. The execution problem was real, and it wasn't only about roster construction.

The Blue Jackets went 2–8 down the stretch, scoring 2.1 goals a game against a prior pace of 3.5. Both sides of the ice broke down simultaneously — the offense dried up and the defense gave back a full extra goal per game. That's a systems and habits problem as much as a personnel one, which is presumably why Bowness wanted another voice in the room.

Training camp is close. The roster additions are mostly done — Nichushkin, Tuch, Greaves locked in, Sillinger extended, Lundestrom's status still unclear. Granato is the last piece added before Columbus finds out whether any of this actually holds.