Ruff's return: Reuniting the past with the now so the future can mimic the past
For Lindy Ruff, the pressure begins now.
There’s an old cliché about how you can never go home again. But what if where you wind up was home all along?
For Lindy Ruff, Buffalo has been home since 1979 and he’s never truly left it. Sure, there have been jobs that took him elsewhere, but he always returned to Western New York in the end. After all, when Buffalo was home as a player for more than 10 years and again as a coach for 16, it just makes life sense to not pull up stakes and go wherever the wind takes you.
But Ruff’s return to Buffalo as the head coach of the Sabres was something that wasn’t never believed to be a possibility after he was fired by the organization in 2013. After all, who wants to go back to a place that told you they didn’t want you around anymore? For Ruff, returning to the Sabres bench was an opportunity that was too good to ignore.
“It would mean a lot to have this group of players experience what I was able to experience as a player and as a coach,” Ruff said during his re-introductory press conference. “This building shook in some of the playoff series that [I was] involved with. I can still remember the 8-0 Philadelphia win and sitting in the office and thinking, ‘The building is shaking. It’s incredible.’ So, my goal is to have these guys, this group, experience what I was able to experience.”
Before the building can shake again, Ruff will have to get the team to play in a way that will fill it every night and return to the postseason for the first time since 2011, two years before he was fired.
The challenge is sizable in nature, although with the roster he’ll get to work with, it’s not an impossible task by any means. After all, he just got done coaching a team in New Jersey that was set up in a similar fashion.
“(Being like the 2006 team) that’s what we’re going to set out to do,” Alex Tuch said. “We’re all going to have really good summers and come into camp day one and be ready to go. You talk about accountability and accountability is looking at yourself and knowing what you can be doing to be better, not only for your own personal success but for the success of the team and each teammate that you’re with.”
More on a day filled with memories but with a focus on what’s to come for the Sabres organization.
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