Mike Harrington: How will Lindy Ruff react to big decisions Sabres have ahead?
Ruff came into this season needing 36 wins to become just the fifth coach in NHL history to 900 wins. He's still 14 shy with 28 games left. Can the Sabres win half of what's left?
Lindy Ruff turned 65 on Monday, so he can take his AARP card and get all those senior citizen benefits, too. As we all get older and use our wisdom to figure out life's issues, you can imagine how jumbled Ruff's mind has been the last 10 days.
The Sabres returned to practice Tuesday in KeyBank Center after their break for the 4 Nations Face-Off, and the expectation was that Ruff will stage at least three days of Training Camp 2.0 before the NHL schedule's resumption here Saturday night against the New York Rangers.
I'm betting that was Ruff's plan all the way back to the summer. Make sure his players get a good break, then have them come back and skate them hard and long for a couple days heading into the schedule kicking back into gear.
Sabres coach Lindy Ruff looks on against the Maple Leafs during the second period at the KeyBank Center on Dec. 20. Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
After all, it will be less than two weeks to the trade deadline when the puck drops Saturday night, and the playoff push will be on, right?
Whoops.
Nothing has gone as planned with this season. There's no way Ruff imagined he would be coaching the last-place team in the Eastern Conference. And if you look at the standings, the Sabres are legitimately the only team in the East out of the playoff hunt.
They're 12 points back of the final wild-card slot, and the three teams right above them (Montreal, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) are all tied at just six points out. That's a difficult spot, but they're not out of it at all.
Twelve points back? Unless you run off some miracle winning streak – and who thinks that's happening? – the Sabres are pretty much toast again. For the 14th straight year, extending their own dubious NHL record.
But coaches have to still push and that's what Ruff is doing. He told his players that in his pre-practice meeting on Tuesday. The playoffs aren't two months away for his team. They've already started.
"Break it down into every five games," Ruff theorized. "Get a minimum of seven points every five games, which would put us at 84 with three games left. Win those three games and get you to 90. I know it's hard. I know it's a difficult task, but I think you have to set goals.
"If you look at the previous five, it was 4-1. Set goals and try to achieve your goals. Make this your playoff push."
Ruff still has his touch in some areas, notably that the standings haven't weighed down the team mentally. The club is ready to play, as evidenced by its NHL-leading goal total in the first period and its propensity for scoring first. The record is 5-3 in the last eight games and 11-8-1 in the last 20. No quit in those numbers at all.
But the power play just isn't good enough, the commitment to defensive awareness remains sorely lacking and the goaltending needs to be better. Ruff hasn't made enough dents in those areas, and it's to the point that some assistant coaches like Mike Bales (goaltending) and Marty Wilford (defense) may just about be at expired shelf lives.
Ruff envisioned a return to the playoffs. The Sabres were one point away two years ago and seven points shy last season, when they were constantly chasing games. Those issues were going to get fixed, and this team would be tougher to play against.
You just never expected a Ruff team to be so mentally weak. All those blown leads, like the two games against Colorado that will live in franchise infamy. You immediately think back to Dec. 15 in Toronto, shortly after the Sabres blew a 3-1 lead in a 5-3 loss to the Maple Leafs that extended the winless streak to a stunning 10 games.
I asked Ruff that night how shocking it was for a team with the kind of talent in its lineup to be at that kind of low point. The pain in his face and his voice was stark.
"I’m almost lost for words, obviously. It’s on me to solve this,” Ruff said. “This is the toughest ‘solve’ I’ve been around. It is on me to get these guys in the right place and win a hockey game, and nobody else.”
It wasn't lost on me how broken Ruff sounded. Especially since he was talking maybe 20 feet down the hall from where he gave his memorably bombastic "that's the definition of a joke" rant about a hit by Toronto's Darcy Tucker following a game against the Leafs on April 3, 2006.
You know Ruff remains sore over the lack of response his team gave to the hit on Tage Thompson by New Jersey's Stefan Noesen earlier this month. No way that's the reaction of a Ruff team.
Ruff came into this season needing 36 wins to become just the fifth coach in NHL history to 900 wins. He's still 14 shy with 28 games left. Can the Sabres win half of what's left?
Ruff is talking winning at least 20 of those 28. Tall order indeed.
"I think the one thing we've really tried to do is just take it one game at a time, put that previous game away, and move on, whatever that is, whether it's a win or a loss," he said. "Deal with it, move on. We know what what hurt us in the last game (the coverage mistakes and puck management issues in the Feb. 8 loss at Nashville). Let's make sure that part's improved again. Get back to what was making us successful. And win a hockey game on Saturday."
Ruff got a two-year deal to come home last April. Does he need all the aggravation of coaching this bedraggled franchise at this stage of his life? Might he go off into retirement? Or might he even take on a higher position other than coach?
The trade deadline is likely to reshape this team yet again, although it's a mystery why Terry Pegula would want Kevyn Adams in charge of those moves at this point.
Especially once the team changes in March, it's sure going to be interesting how Ruff responds to the rest of a lost season. And what he decides he's going to be doing in the 2025-26 campaign. At his age, does he need this grief?