For Lindy Ruff, the pressure begins now.
There’s an old cliché about how you can never go home again. But what if where you wind up was home all along?
For Lindy Ruff, Buffalo has been home since 1979 and he’s never truly left it. Sure, there have been jobs that took him elsewhere, but he always returned to Western New York in the end. After all, when Buffalo was home as a player for more than 10 years and again as a coach for 16, it just makes life sense to not pull up stakes and go wherever the wind takes you.
But Ruff’s return to Buffalo as the head coach of the Sabres was something that wasn’t never believed to be a possibility after he was fired by the organization in 2013. After all, who wants to go back to a place that told you they didn’t want you around anymore? For Ruff, returning to the Sabres bench was an opportunity that was too good to ignore.
“It would mean a lot to have this group of players experience what I was able to experience as a player and as a coach,” Ruff said during his re-introductory press conference. “This building shook in some of the playoff series that [I was] involved with. I can still remember the 8-0 Philadelphia win and sitting in the office and thinking, ‘The building is shaking. It’s incredible.’ So, my goal is to have these guys, this group, experience what I was able to experience.”
Before the building can shake again, Ruff will have to get the team to play in a way that will fill it every night and return to the postseason for the first time since 2011, two years before he was fired.
The challenge is sizable in nature, although with the roster he’ll get to work with, it’s not an impossible task by any means. After all, he just got done coaching a team in New Jersey that was set up in a similar fashion.
“(Being like the 2006 team) that’s what we’re going to set out to do,” Alex Tuch said. “We’re all going to have really good summers and come into camp day one and be ready to go. You talk about accountability and accountability is looking at yourself and knowing what you can be doing to be better, not only for your own personal success but for the success of the team and each teammate that you’re with.”
More on a day filled with memories but with a focus on what’s to come for the Sabres organization.
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The historical comparisons were inevitable. Coming back to a team and a place that was such a huge part of Ruff’s life was going to have people all over thinking back to the “good old days” no matter what.
But the past in Buffalo for Ruff, for everyone, is littered with heartbreak. Sabres owner Terry Pegula couldn’t help but mention the 1999 Stanley Cup Final and the controversy that’ll be forever attached to it. He also mentioned the 2006 and 2007 teams that went to the Eastern Conference Final, the latter of which won the Presidents’ Trophy, but neither of which got to the Stanley Cup Final.
Even in an awkward way, Pegula made sure to mention GM Kevyn Adams winning the Cup with Carolina in 2006. Perhaps it was more awkward because Adams made it a point in the press release announcing Ruff’s return as not at all being a nostalgia move and here everyone was reminiscing.
It’s forgivable because it was impossible not to do. But while Ruff’s past is part of the fun about his return, going through all of that from being fired by Buffalo to landing in Dallas as head coach, with the Rangers as an assistant and New Jersey as a head coach once again, is what led him back to the Sabres in the end and it’s those experiences that bring him to Buffalo to help get them back to the playoffs.
“The game has changed so much. Lindy Ruff has changed so much,” Ruff said. “When you look at a group like we have here – highly skilled players – you can execute that highly skilled part of the game. You can use it for offense. You can use it for defense. But you have to have the discipline inside the game to do the right thing at the right time. Sometimes that’s puck decisions, sometimes it’s ‘Well, maybe we don’t need one more goal at this time. We may be able to win this game 2-0 and not put a lot of risk in our game.’ My coaching style from when I left here – I actually laugh at some of my coaching style because a lot of things have changed. I won’t go into a lot of detail, but I’m a lot better coach now than I was when I left.”
In discussing Lindy’s hiring, the thing we looked at was how much his teams were able to generate shot attempts, shots on goal and offense as well. The antiquated thought that bringing him back would reduce the current roster to playing the same style as Ruff’s teams did the first few years he was on the job in the late-90s. Scanning the numbers his Stars and Devils teams put up, that couldn’t be further from the truth. With the team he’ll have to coach in Buffalo this time around, he knows what it will take to help get the best out of them.
“The style of play, we’ll try to play a real fast game,” Ruff said. “Use your speed and use your talent. Every player has something to offer, and a different skill set, but use that skill set to make us the best offensive team. We really had a team (in New Jersey) that had defense that were involved with the play to help a great offense. That’ll be a big part of it. But use that skill and use that speed to be a good defensive player, too.”
The path this Sabres team has taken to now where they’ll be coached by Lindy Ruff computes with what he said. Many of these players had to learn defensive skills the hard way under Ralph Krueger. Under Don Granato they got to be themselves but ultimately grew out of that to want a coach that will be tougher on them and demand more.
That toughness, but fairness, from behind the bench is what everyone feels will take them to the postseason even if it means the players might have to have the same experiences guys like Thomas Vanek did back in the day.
The old becoming new and turning out like the old is what this is all about in the end.
“I think he fits the mold of what we talked about as a team and just talking to individual guys about what we need to make it to that next level,” Tuch said. “I think he’s perfect for it and guys knew he was a serious candidate, so we were talking about it. I’ve only talked to a few guys since it happened, but we all think it’s going to work out for us. You know what? Not everyone is going to love him and at times we’re all going to hate him. That’s what happens when you have a coach that asks a lot of you. With that is going to come a lot of success. We’re ready for him and we’re ready for the opportunity.”