Sabres superstar defenseman shares an optimistic take for new head coach’s style

Let’s face it: Rasmus Dahlin is the face of the Sabres franchise, so his words matter more than anyone else’s on the team. Dahlin isn’t just their highest-paid player, but you can argue he’s the most productive one they got in all three zones. 

Dahlin, who finished the 2023-24 season with 59 points and 20 goals, also officially made his mark as one of the game’s most feared hitters, racking up 195 body checks. And with Lindy Ruff’s more aggressive style, Dahlin could finish the year with 225 or more hits and make opponents think about an incoming body check every time they skate near him. 

But Dahlin also noticed a new approach is not all Ruff brings, and it’s something that a recent article from Bill Hoppe of Buffalo Hockey Beat pointed out. While Hoppe quoted Dahlin a few times, here is an optimistic take the superstar defenseman shared about the Blue and Gold’s bench boss: “You can really see this camp everyone is stepping up, everybody is working hard, everyone is doing that backcheck or blocking that shot or whatever. Lindy’s doing a great job making us do (those) things, and he’s talking a lot about non-negotiables. Those are the things. We’re going to be fine. It’s going to be a good year.”

In the above quote, the “non-negotiables” quip is something we needed to see more of from the Sabres, but that didn’t happen during the Granato era. I’ll never say Granato was a bad coach since he at least helped make the team relevant, but there’s also a reason he’s gone, and Ruff returned. 

Sabres superstar pointed to something important about Lindy Ruff

In 2022-23 and last season, the Sabres were a better hockey team than perhaps any other time during their playoff drought. Overall, that is, but Dahlin’s words tell us what separates Ruff’s style from Granato’s when it seemed like the latter was too easy on the players when they made mistakes. 

Granted, Granato didn’t need to be Ralph Krueger, but there were way too many instances when players made mistakes, and he did nothing to hold them accountable. And I get it: Young hockey teams are going to mess up since it comes with the territory of having so much youth, but when there’s no accountability or learning from those mistakes, you have a problem. 

It’s why the Sabres never stepped forward in the disaster that was the 2023-24 season. From Dahlin’s quip in the previous section, when those “non-negotiables” are instead negotiables, it leads to a stagnant team at best, and it’s what the 2023-24 Sabres were. 

Overall, Dahlin shared a lot of optimism here because for the 23 players who end up on the big club, the message that repeating mistake after mistake will sink in. And for any player who doesn’t own up to and correct their mistakes, they will face consequences in terms of less ice time or even as a healthy scratch, and that will lead to better results on the ice.