OTTAWA – Nothing is more jarring in professional sports life than being traded. A player goes from a situation where, presumably, things were going well, they have a crew of friends and teammates they enjoy being around, and most of all, a place they’ve called home during (and maybe even after) the season.
They’re settled, life is good and then suddenly it’s not and they’re off to a new city, team, and setting that’s entirely unknown. Sometimes those trades come with warning, but often times they don’t and the time put into their now previous organization is forced into the past whether they’re ready for it or not.
The thing about any trade for any player is they’ll have to go back to where it all began eventually and when they do, it creates a unique moment in time when they’re the foe instead of the favored son and that homecoming happens eventually, ready or not.
For Buffalo Sabres forward Josh Norris, his return to Ottawa where his career saw some of its highest highs and his hardest moments, creates such a moment.
“I have mixed emotions, obviously, just thinking back on my time here,” Norris said. “Obviously, had a couple years where I did really well and kind of broke into the league. Obviously, grateful for opportunity that I had. Then, just ran into a lot of injury trouble, obviously, and yeah, never really got back to kind of the player that I was hoping to be for them for a long time.
“Yeah, stuff happens, and I’m in a great spot now. I’m super happy in Buffalo. I love Buffalo. But, yeah, nothing bad to say about Ottawa. I never really got to say thanks to all the fans.”
The kind of conflict that inevitable reunions like this present is obvious, especially when the players are happy where they’re at now. Pro athletes are always about moving forward and trying to not live in the past, at least while they’re still in the early years of their careers. Players can “move on” all they want to, but when it’s time to go back to where it all began, the challenge of everything that goes into it is immense.
“No, there’s nothing that prepares you for that,” Ottawa Senators forward Claude Giroux said. “You just have to be a professional and play your game.”
Giroux spent 15 seasons and 1,000 games with the Philadelphia Flyers before he was traded to the Florida Panthers days before the trade deadline in 2022. Although he was spared returning to Philadelphia that season, when he signed with Ottawa that offseason, his return to Philly was a deeply emotional one on Nov. 12, 2022. With that amount of time together, navigating that kind of moment was beyond difficult.
“I wouldn’t say anything helped me (get through it),” Giroux said. “When the game started that kind of went away a little it. Just go back to play in the building you’ve been playing a lot and play against the other team. It’s just a little awkward at the start.”
In Bo Byram’s case, going from the Colorado Avalanche with whom he helped win a Stanley Cup to Buffalo made the return to Denver even more of a whirlwind.
Being a young player and going through a sudden trade can test their resilience and ability to digest that, yes, sports are a business and things like this can happen. The ability to do that can almost be made easier once it’s accepted.
Almost.
“At the end of the day, you’re there to do a job and play as well as you can,” Byram said. “So, a lot of emotions and different things going on. Seeing people you haven’t got to see in a while, things like that, which is nice. But it’s tough, you know? It’s a pretty weird feeling.”
For Dylan Cozens, his return to Buffalo as the other big player in the deal that sent Norris to the Sabres, he may not have had the years and games spent that Giroux did with the Flyers, but he also didn’t get much of a chance to process being traded and then going back home again.
The trade between Buffalo and Ottawa went down March 7, 2025 and Cozens made his return to Buffalo not even three weeks later on March 25. For someone as young as Cozens who spent the first nearly five years of his career with the Sabres and playing against the Senators as division rivals, flipping that switch right away was tricky.
“It was a little weird,” Cozens said. “It was a weird game. I didn’t really enjoy playing that one being so close to being traded. It was weird and I think now playing against them, it’s fun now. It was definitely weird coming home that quick and being on the other side of things that quick after the trade.
“I didn’t look at anyone on Buffalo. I just tried to play pretend like I didn’t know any of them to see if that would help.”
For Norris, he spent nearly six seasons on the ice in Ottawa and went from the highs of a 35-goal season in 2021-2022 to the lows of multiple shoulder injuries and surgeries and then to being traded to Buffalo in March.
“I think he’s pretty excited to play, coming back,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “I think anybody’s always excited to play against their former teammates, you know you’re going to face a lot of friends. But I think he’s excited to get out there and perform.”
Ruff knows what it’s like to be in Norris’s shoes. Ruff was a fixture on the Sabres for nearly 10 seasons before he was traded to the New York Rangers in March 1989. Even though his first game with the Rangers was against the Sabres, his return to the Aud didn’t come until November the following season.
“I think it’s different for any player,” Ruff said. “I think any player the natural tendency is you want to put on a good performance against your former teammates. I think you can draw a little bit from that for sure.”
For Norris and all the emotions that will be tied into his first game back in Ottawa, his focus has always been forward about what he can do to be a better player and to stay in the lineup. But for one night, at last, he’ll be able to have the closure on the biggest chapter of his career to this point.
“Nothing bad to say about Ottawa,” Norris said. “Never got to say thanks to all the fans. It was kind of a lot of mixed emotions when I left, so I just kind of left it quiet. But they were always great to me, and I really felt they had my back even when I was injured so I always appreciated that about people here.”