It’s been 48 hours since the Buffalo Sabres first took to the ice after a three-month offseason. Much has transpired over the past two days as the team prepares for the upcoming season. From rolling out new combinations on the offensive line to a player’s comeback, a wide array of takeaways can be absorbed from these first two days. Head coach Lindy Ruff emphasized player conditioning and praised this team’s depth on the blue line. Meanwhile, stars like forward Tage Thompson and defenseman Rasmus Dahlin spoke to the media on goals and expectations for the season.
New Group & Experimenting on Offense
This training camp brought a change to the group’s composition. In past years, the Sabres and the Rochester Americans formed mixed lines; with this alteration, however, the team decided to keep the NHL players with themselves, and the same applies to the American Hockey League (AHL) players. This idea came with the rationale that starting with the same group of guys at training camp improves team chemistry in the long run. Ruff spoke to the media about this decision, stating that “We’re going to scrimmage on Saturday, and obviously things will change, but to try to kickstart where we want to get to, we just felt it was important.”
Related: Analyzing the Sabres’ Training Camp Roster
With the absence of Alex Tuch due to injuries came the opportunity to try out new combinations on the offensive line. Tage Thompson, who was recently assigned as a center, started training camp on the team’s top line as a right-winger. Accompanying him is the returnee, Josh Norris, who edged out both veteran Ryan McLeod and youngster Jiri Kuhlich to start at center.
Josh Norris, Buffalo Sabres (Photo by Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images)
The 26-year-old, who was brought from a trade with the Ottawa Senators, seems most poised for this job as a former 55-point (35 goals and 20 assists) scorer. With a chip on his shoulder this season, he will be looking to find that form early on. Zach Benson completes the front line with tons of expectations surrounding this 20-year-old’s play this season.
The third line looks to be this offense’s point of intrigue simply because these are young players who look to take the next step, but it has yet to be seen from them. Right-winger Josh Doan, who was recently acquired via trade from the Utah Mammoth, may not be a one-and-done type of prospect, but his tenacity and hustle are worth watching. Kuhlich and Jack Quinn round out this line, with the two expected to break out for this team at some point.
Norris Returns to the Ice
After only suiting up for the Sabres three times last season, Norris returns to the ice with a reinvigorated mindset going into the season. When asked about the player, Ruff replied, “I think we will get an opportunity, now, to see the real Norris. We know that he’s an elite player.” He spent the offseason doing training sessions in Plymouth, Michigan, with stars like the Hughes brothers, Dylan Larkin, Zach Werenski, Kyle Connor, Cole Caufield, Alex DeBrincat, and Connor Hellebuyck.
Norris was a proven contributor for the Senators, with a 35-goal season under his tutelage. Where Buffalo struggled is where Norris could provide some spark, which is on power plays, where the Sabres ranked 24th last season. In his 35-goal season, 16 of them came on the man advantage.
The American forward remains aware of the questions surrounding his durability until proven otherwise. But if a productive offseason and his previous solid seasons proved something, it is that he could be primed for a stellar comeback. According to Norris, “Just with the amount of time that I’ve missed over the last three or four years, I still really feel that I have a lot to prove, and just to prove it to myself, really; so, that’s probably the thing I’m most excited about individually.”
Prioritizing Conditioning & Coach’s Assessment on Defense
It’s back to the basics for the Sabres. No puck is to slide on the ice until players, in two lines, complete several laps of what Ruff calls a “compete skating drill” in which players skate down the ice, circle a couple of cones in the neutral zone, advance to the far goal line, maneuver around several cones, and rush back to the opposite end. This new training regimen is in part due to Brian Galivan’s strength and conditioning team, which ended the practice with cross-ice sprints.
On the other hand, Ruff praised what he saw from the defense’s third line of Mattias Samuelsson and Connor Timmins. He raved about Samuelsson’s well-conditioned physique going into the camp, stating that he “was one of our top guys going through all the work we did, off ice and on ice.” Ruff also named two Americans who showed glimpses of potential, granting them possible NHL minutes this season, being Nikita Novikov and Vsevelod Komarov.
After a 44-goal, 72-point season, Thompson looks to bolster his offensive production, setting a 50-goal, 100-point season goal for the upcoming season. In his address to the media, he said, “I’d love to hit 50 goals and 100 points – that’d be great. But I think priority is winning; if I’m doing those things, we’re probably winning.”
Thompson, who also struggled with injuries last season, had this to say about imposing himself on the ice, “But for me, I think ‘more to give’ means more about just consistency: being dominant every single night, not having any games where maybe I wasn’t as noticeable or I didn’t have as big of an impact on the game. I want to be someone who impacts the game every time I step over the boards, every time the puck is on my stick. I feel like I have the ability to get there, and I think I had a really good summer of training and put myself in a spot to do so.”
Captain Rasmus Dahlin, meanwhile, spoke to the media for the first time at this camp after revealing his wife Carolina’s journey through a heart transplant. Dhalin’s teammates remained supportive of him through the couple’s trials, saying, “Unbelievable. … I don’t think, when this stuff happens, you see each other as a captain or whatever. You’re just a human with good people around you. I couldn’t be more thankful for all of the support.”
As far as expectations go for the season, he remarked, “We have a big year in front of us, and we have a chance here to build something really good, and we just have to keep having a really good training camp. We’ve had a great start; just have to keep building.”
The Sabres open up the camp with takeaways both from the team’s corps to its coaches. New groups were arranged, as well as new offensive lines put into the mix. Norris reintroduces himself to this squad, while the coach talks about defense, and the staff imposes new conditioning rules. Lastly, Dahlin and Thompson reveal goals and expectations for the new season.
