BUFFALO, N.Y. — The group that Josh Norris skates with during summer training in Michigan is loaded. Among the NHL stars who join the skates are the Hughes brothers, Dylan Larkin, Cole Caufield, Alex DeBrincat, Zach Werenski, Connor Hellebuyck and Kyle Connor.
Connor has seven 30-goal seasons and two 40-goal seasons on his resume already at age 28. He knows what elite goal scorers look like not just because he skates with a bunch of them in the summer but also because he is one himself. So his words about Norris, the Buffalo Sabres’ top-line center who returned from another extended injury absence Monday night, carry weight.
When the Jets visited Buffalo on Monday, Norris played in just his fifth game with the Sabres since they traded for him at the deadline last season. Injuries have limited him to 116 games since the start of the 2022-23 season. He played three games for the Sabres after the deadline last season before missing the rest of the season with an oblique injury. Most recently, Norris missed 24 games with an upper body injury he sustained in Buffalo’s season opener. But Connor isn’t wishy-washy when it comes to the type of player he is.
“He’s a great skater,” Connor said. “He’s powerful. He’s strong. He has a really good shot. It’s just been kind of crazy the injury history and what’s been going on. You feel for him because when he’s healthy and fully at his capability, he’s that up and down power forward who dictates the play and carries the puck and gets to the net. He can score in a lot of different ways. He scored a lot of goals in Ottawa, and I don’t see any reason why he can’t get to that cliff again and be a 30- or even 40-goal scorer.”
Norris showed off exactly that potential in his return to the lineup Monday, with two goals and an assist in a dominant 5-1 win. He got started early by drawing a penalty. On the power play, he sent a puck toward the net that Josh Doan deflected. Jason Zucker scored on the rebound, and Norris tallied his first assist of the season. Then late in the first period, Norris got a puck at the side of the net and quickly backhanded it by Jets goalie Eric Comrie.
But it was his goal early in the third period that showed how tough a player Norris is to defend. He used his speed to skate away from Winnipeg’s top defensive pair of Josh Morrissey and Dylan DeMelo and then finished the play with a quick move to his backhand to give the Sabres a 5-1 lead.
Josh Norris is TOO. SMOOTH. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/8W16ckolYj
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) December 2, 2025
“What a start,” Sabres forward Alex Tuch said. “We saw it in the preseason, we saw it in the limited amount of time he played at the start of the season. Obviously it was tough to see him go down with an injury but to see how hard he’s been working, he’s stayed positive and been with the guys as much as he can and put a lot of good work in. To see him come out and have success, man, he can fly. It’s noticeable. It looks like he’s been playing 25 games already. That was awesome to see.”
Norris said he didn’t get a great night of sleep Sunday, anxiously anticipating his return to the lineup. He wasn’t sure how the game was going to go, and he told his linemates, Zach Benson and Tage Thompson, that he just wanted to keep things simple.
“I just wanted to come back and just kind of get right back in and not be a distraction,” Norris said. “I thought the guys have done a good job. They’ve been battling. We’ve had some guys out, and I know it happens across the league, but it is hard to do that when you have so many guys out. So, yeah, just thought they did a great job up to this point, and I just wanted to come in and contribute.”
Norris changes the entire complexion of the lineup. When the Sabres acquired him, Lindy Ruff had him penciled in as his top-line center right away. That’s where he skated during the preseason, and he jumped right into that spot Monday. This was just the fifth game we’ve seen from Norris in a Sabres uniform. The obvious caveat to all of this is that they need him to stay healthy, but they looked like a different team with him in the lineup.
“I thought we had some guys step up in his absence, but at the same time, to replace a guy like that is damn near impossible,” Tuch said. “He has such a high-end skill set, such a good skater. Just an unbelievable 200-foot centerman. His IQ is off the charts. He put it on full display tonight. He was unbelievable. When you miss a guy like that it definitely hurts. It’s good to get him back.”
The Sabres’ speed was noticeable as they smothered the Jets throughout the game. Buffalo had a 30-15 advantage in scoring chances at even strength even while spending most of the game protecting a 3-0 lead it built in the first period. The Sabres’ blowout win prompted a closed-door, players-only meeting from the Jets immediately following the game.
With the way the season has started in Buffalo, the Sabres have often been the ones doing that type of soul-searching after grisly losses in this building. They’ve been shut out three times at home, including as recently as a 5-0 home loss to the Devils on Friday. They’re also still tied for last in the Eastern Conference in points percentage despite clawing back to .500 with an 11-11-4 record.
Now comes a test that could define the season. The Sabres are about to put their 2-6-2 road record to the test with a trip that will span 13 days and six games. They’re as healthy as they’ve been all season, so there should be no mistaking what type of team this is by the time they get on the plane to head home. But Monday night, they got a glimpse of what they could be with a healthy Norris carrying the top of the lineup.
“I think it’s one of those things where how hard he works, how much he wants to be back and be playing hockey again, I think it just kind of motivates the whole team,” Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen said. “Everybody wants to play well when he’s coming back. Watching him going through that, how unfortunate it was for him to injure himself that early into the season, I think everybody got a boost from that tonight.”