Lindy Ruff, Marco Sturm and the ongoing coaching battle in Sabres-Bruins series
A seven-game playoff series can be a chess match between coaches, and this one is off to an entertaining start.
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Lindy Ruff and the Sabres have a 2-1 series lead over Boston. Fred Kfoury III / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Lindy Ruff really didn’t like the way the Buffalo Sabres played in their Game 2 loss to the Boston Bruins. When Ruff was younger, he would have found a way to show his displeasure. He probably would have ripped the team in the locker room or lit the players up in his postgame news conference. Maybe both.
But at 66, Ruff knows a bit better. He understands he has an inexperienced team and that requires a certain tact. So when he walked up to the riser and sat down for his postgame news conference after the Sabres’ 4-2 loss on Tuesday, Ruff was surprisingly loose. At one point, a reporter asked Ruff if he would consider putting one of his speedy forecheckers on the power play to boost the slumping unit.
“Who did you have in mind?” Ruff said with a smile.
When the reporter suggested fourth-liner Beck Malenstyn, Ruff smiled and said, “You might be being silly.”
And then when Ruff was asked about the Bruins trying to turn up the temperature in the series and drag the Sabres into more scrums after the whistle, he referenced the pre-series comments from Bruins coach Marco Sturm about his team being “bigger and stronger.”
“You heard him say they’re bigger, more physical, so yeah, for sure,” Ruff deadpanned. “I’m a little worried.”
Then he laughed.
The next day, Ruff kept the players off the ice and went through a video session. Ruff was emphatic that the Sabres would win in Boston. He didn’t want the confidence of his group to waver. Despite how disappointed he was in the way his team played in Game 2, he didn’t let that show publicly.
“I didn’t want to create any more stress on our group,” Ruff said. “I didn’t want to give you guys any more questions to ask them about what went wrong; ‘How come this was bad?’ We’ll deal with that stuff on the inside.”
Ruff said learning to control his emotions has been a learning process throughout his career. That came from many instances of being too hard on players or being too angry about a single game. Now, a lot of times he won’t go into the dressing room after a game. He waits to digest the game with the coaches first before dealing with the mistakes the next day.
“It just came from deciding that the only guy that feels really good after a game when he goes in there and is a little upset is me,” Ruff said. “It doesn’t do anything for anybody else. I, myself, have to take responsibility for my actions, too, at times. I think over the years you got to learn how to be a better person, better coach, and I think I’ve adapted to that.”
Ruff’s composed message clearly paid off. The Sabres bounced back by playing their most complete game of the playoffs in a 3-1 win in Boston on Thursday night, taking a 2-1 series lead.
“I thought we got to a point where we were starting to wear them out last night,” Ruff said. “Our O-zone play and our puck movement was real good.”
Ruff came into this series with the experience edge over his counterpart in Boston; Sturm is coaching in his first playoff series as an NHL head coach. And the coaching battle has been a legitimate factor in the series. Sturm got things started when he put the bait out there, talking about his team being bigger and stronger. It might have worked, given the way the Sabres got dragged into some of the post-whistle scrums and let the Bruins dictate what type of game it was.
Sturm also clearly has this Bruins team dialed into the details. Their defensive structure is sound, and the Bruins have had a lot of answers for the way the Sabres try to create offense.
But Ruff has made some savvy adjustments of his own. He wisely switched from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to Alex Lyon in net for Game 3, and the veteran rewarded him with a 24-save outing. He also put in Noah Östlund to replace injured Josh Norris, and the rookie came through with a goal and an assist and helped the Sabres protect a third-period lead. Putting Tyson Kozak in for Josh Dunne also immediately paid dividends for the fourth line.
More importantly, though, Ruff didn’t panic. He didn’t overhaul how the Sabres play, put the lines in a blender or start ripping the team in public. He’s been the calm and steady presence the Sabres have needed. He and his coaches still have to figure out Buffalo’s power play, which is 0-for-36 dating to early April, so it’s not all been perfect. But there’s a reason Ruff should be a favorite for the Jack Adams Award, and it’s not just because the Sabres are a feel-good story. He knows what this team needs and when.
Now it’s on Sturm to answer. He’ll have lineup decisions to make after a lot of Bruins underperformed Thursday night. After Game 3, Sturm was also lobbying officials for more calls when the Sabres were poking at Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman after the whistle. The refs were also quick to limit the after-the-whistle pushing and shoving in Game 3 after warning teams before the game. If less of that is allowed going forward, that favors the Sabres, who probably wasted too much focus and energy on that stuff in the first two games of this series.
A seven-game playoff series can be a chess match between coaches, and this one is off to an entertaining start.