Lindy Ruff has spent most of his adult life trying to help the Buffalo Sabres win hockey games. He played 10 years donning a Blue and Gold jersey and he’s in his second stint behind the bench as the team’s head coach, a role he’s filled for 17 seasons and counting.

The 65-year-old Canadian has one item left on his NHL to-do list before he walks off into the sunset, though.

“Let’s worry about the Stanley Cup first,” Ruff told Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic when asked if retirement may be on the horizon.

That would have been a borderline laughable statement in early December, when the Sabres owned last place in the Eastern Conference and questions arose about whether the Buffalo legend was on the hot seat, but things changed considerably over the past two months.

The Sabres posted a 21-5-2 record over their final 28 games before the NHL’s current three-week break for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. They possess the top wild-card spot in the East and have a 67.7% chance to end the longest playoff drought in league history (14 years), per MoneyPuck.

While putting Buffalo in the Cup contender category this season may be a stretch, anything can happen once a team qualifies for the postseason, especially if it gets some hot goaltending.

Lindy Ruff is a beloved figure in Western New York, but a Sabres Stanley Cup title may earn him a statue in downtown Buffalo

Expectations were measured when Ruff returned to Buffalo in 2024. Nobody expected him to single-handedly save a floundering franchise. Most fans were simply happy to see him back with the organization after his first tenure ended on a low note in 2013.

The Sabres’ second-round pick in the 1979 NHL Draft made coaching stops with the Dallas Stars, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils during his 11 years away from the 716 area code, but he’ll always be most closely associated with the Blue and Gold.

Ruff exemplified a team-first contributor during his playing days. He’d fill any role, whether it was on defense or at forward, if it meant the Sabres had a better chance to win.

The hockey lifer told Fairburn his advice to others is always the same when delivering a speech.

“The message when I go out, the last time I was out there shooting on 10-year-old goalies and having some fun, you just talk about hope and you talk about dreaming,” Ruff said. “Follow your dreams and chase them for as long as you can. Really, that’s all I did. I just thought as a kid, ‘Boy, I would love to play hockey.’ I probably equally loved baseball, but at the end, hockey was the path that I was given.

“I worked hard to get to where I was at and worked hard at trying to be a good player. By no means was I one of the best players. I just tried to be that hardworking guy that could help the team win.”

It’s a mindset that matches a blue-collar town like Buffalo perfectly. You could argue players like Ruff, Larry Playfair, Rob Ray, Brad May, Matthew Barnaby, Andrew Peters and Patrick Kaleta were just as popular as high-scoring superstars because they worked hard and stepped up to defend teammates.

So, Ruff’s legacy in Western New York is already secured and getting the Sabres back to the playoffs would be another impressive feather in his cap.

You could argue the 2006 Jack Adams Award winner should retire if Buffalo breaks the drought. He could end his coaching career in a positive, memorable manner and the franchise would likely offer him an executive role in the front office.

Ruff isn’t built that way, though. He’s long stated his desire to finally bring a championship to the city and it’s clear from his press conferences that his passion for the the sport remains incredibly strong.

So, he keeps showing up to work with a singular goal in mind: winning the Stanley Cup, and it sounds like he won’t quit until the quest is complete.