3 ways Lindy Ruff can improve the Buffalo Sabres
New head coach Lindy Ruff has his work cut out for him this coming season.
The Buffalo Sabres rehired former head coach Lindy Ruff in April after firing Don Granato at the end of the 2023-24 season. Ruff has said he’s looking at ways to improve the team this upcoming hockey year. Besides emulating Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen's never say die playing ability, something Ruff mentioned, here are three areas the coach needs to focus on in 2024-25.
Power play scoring
The Sabres have long suffered a weakness when it comes to power play scoring. Whether it’s failing to get many shots on goal, keeping the puck in opponents zones or giving it away and allowing shorthanded scoring chances, Buffalo often lacks the skill to take advantage of 5-on-4 opportunities. Watching the Sabres on a power play, fans frequently question which team actually has the man advantage.
Good NHL franchises know how to score with the extra attacker. This past season, the blue and gold were a dismal 29th out of 32 in PP scoring. By contrast, the top two teams who made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, Edmonton and Florida, both enjoyed a 26.3 and 23.5 power play ranking, an NHL 4th and 8th regular season stat, respectively.
It's clear that if the Sabres hope to end their NHL record breaking 13-year long playoff drought this season, scoring with the man advantage more than 17% of the time is something Ruff has to address.
Defense
Buffalo ranked an NHL-12th in overall defense in 2023-24. While it’s not in the bottom half of the standings, it isn’t as good as it should be. Most of the teams ahead of the Sabres in this category, including Carolina, Boston, Vancouver, the N.Y. Rangers, Seattle, Dallas and Vegas, all made the playoffs, and many even enjoyed deep postseason runs.
The blue and gold have shored up their D, but too often, fans watch the Sabres let in easy goals because of sloppy puck control, bad turnovers and a lack of tight defensive effort. Solid defense wins games. Ruff needs to fix a glaring problem that makes supporters nervous whenever Buffalo has a lead, doubtful the Sabres can hang on to it.
Discipline
Quite often, the Buffalo Sabres are a tale of two teams, putting out a fantastic overall performance in one matchup, then stepping off the gas and losing the next. This past season, Buffalo only had five two-game winning streaks and just two, three-game streaks. One of the reasons the blue and gold fail to win games is because of a lack of consistent effort and consequently, have fallen short on reaching the playoffs year after year.
Winning hockey franchises put out their best effort during the whole 60 minutes, game after game. The Sabres have shown a glaring absence of discipline and a hot and cold approach to playing that hasn’t served them well.
Poor practices under former coach Don Granto undoubtedly contributed to that lackluster discipline level. When the Sabres traded center Casey Mittelstadt to the Colorado Avalanche, he said it was the most he sweated in a morning skate in a long time.
Lindy Ruff has a reputation for being a much more disciplined coach than Granato was. Hopefully, he can train his players to be far more focused and consistent going forward.
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