“Our Game Has Changed A Lot” | Lindy Ruff After Overtime Loss To Columbus | Buffalo Sabres

“Our Game Has Changed A Lot” | Lindy Ruff After Overtime Loss To Columbus | Buffalo Sabres

Did you kind of give the Krebs line credit for kind of getting you guys into the game because early on it just wasn’t going well for you? Yeah. Um that line had a real good night for us. Um almost every shift was a positive shift and um you look at the goal they scored, got around the net. I mean the goals that were scored in the game were all, you know, kind of tips, rebounds, um stuff goalies couldn’t see, screen on the power play. So, um, we knew I said this morning it going to be a hard game. Um, so we they’re a little disappointed we only got a point. Team lost, you know, the lead for the second time in the third period, then lost in overtime. What is this team, where are they at in the process of learning how to protect the lead? U, you know, we’re handling that pretty well. We’ve um we’re not giving up the real egregious chances and we’re still creating good chances. Um I think if Koulique scores in overtime, we’re probably not even talking about you know what happened. Uh you know, we got the breakaway right away. Uh you know, just a little bit of failed coverage on the the tying goal. You know, I thought uh our forward could have pressured right at the point right away. We kind of backed off for whatever reason and it gave an offer an opportunity to sift one through. Went a little step behind in overtime in in that sequence. No, that wasn’t that we’re man-m there. So, uh, Kique vacating the middle of the ice. His man was the guy that made the pass. I think if he holds, we end up killing the play. Um and then you know once he left then you know now we’re facing a little bit of a two and three but we got beat off the wall for sure. And the biggest thing you know both of these overtimes is simply your top guys you got to put the puck in the net when you have a chance. Well you get to a chance I mean that’s you know that once you get one there’s probably getting one the other way because as as you’re going somebody is caught. You’re have a twoon one if they stop it somebody on the other team is cheating and they’re going to get a chance. Um it’s just the way it goes. Um and then the other scenario is you can get caught on a long one and you know you never get out of your own end. So uh you know failed on the three and three coverage. That’s for me is you know we got we got to be better at that. We we know every team in the league plays man. Was very active tonight. Just what did you think of his day? Like this game. I thought started a little bit slow but I thought really got his legs moving. Moved the puck well. Um break up passes. you know, take a look when I go through it. But I I I thought for the most part I thought he skated well and executed well at his best like he was tonight. Like what do you see from him? Top of the circles down a strong guy. Can’t I mean even the shift after they scored, they couldn’t take the puck away from him. Um and they they had a lot of shifts against that top line. Uh they had some tough tasks, but I thought uh you know that that’s is what we need. It can’t always be the top guys. it it you know I think the the one really good chance Austin had we know we need him to start chipping in uh that fourth line chipping in it was in on some good chances uh the Mloud line so you know it’s kind of getting spread out but we need that so much better in the second I you know I think we we thought the game was a 718 start then it was 645 first period just didn’t click at all the way we started is That is that from maybe them being, you know, knowing that their power their penalty kills is so poor and thinking maybe it’s going to be easy or is it just just not connecting? I don’t even know how to answer that one really. Like your team kind of feeds off the emotion Josh Dun plays with. You know, I think our team has done a good job of feeding off whatever emotion there is in the game. I think the team did feed off that that line shifts, that line’s goal, their their next shift. I think we we fed off that energy. They were giving us real good energy. And you know, I think if you look at our last home game, the the the plays that, you know, that Kik and Thompson and Benson were making, you know, we were feeding off of that. I think there’s always something that really activates the bench and gets you into it. I think tonight was it was done in the Krebs and Mountain Stain. They um that’s the type of shift you need and the energy and the bonuses, you know, putting one in the back of the net. Happy with the way the last two went obviously they finished, but you do have points in six out of seven. Just how much do you feel, you know, overall you’re building and trend in the right way? Yeah. Well, I think you can look at it maybe last year that would have been a game that we let let a point slip away. Um uh there was a lot about I liked about how we were playing that third period. I mean probably the goal we would have gave up last year what it might have been an oddnumbered rush uh two and one or something like that. This year it was just a you know a little bit of lack of coverage a little bit um where we didn’t quite get to our guys quick enough to box them out and we didn’t get enough pressure up top. So I think that part of our game has really changed the that you know the high oddman, you know, percentage rushes are are missing. And we’re becoming a team that knows how to still try to win, but don’t make the egregious mistakes to lose. When you say it’s unacceptable with the first period, obviously you guys bounce back in the second and the margins are so small. How big of a hole does that put you in when you know 20 minutes where felt like you guys were slanted? Well, here’s here’s the good part about the hole. It was only a onegoal hole. Like that could have been worse. I thought our goalie gave us some good saves. Um, you know, I thought we came to life at about with about five, six minutes left in the period. Um, but when you’re when you’re not skating, you have no hands. And I think you saw our passing. Our pathing our passing was awful. We couldn’t make a 10-ft pass. We couldn’t make a a 30-oot pass. Uh, when we got our legs going and and started going north in a hurry, we we started to look like a lot better team. Thanks.

Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff spoke to the media after a 4-3 overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on October 28, 2025. He talked about the success that Peyton Krebs, Beck Malenstyn and Josh Dunne had on a line and what the team could have done to have a better start. He also discussed the struggles in overtime after losing back to back games. Ruff talked about what the team can take away for their next game against Boston.

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