Ruff encouraged by Sabres’ first day of training camp

Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR) - The Sabres were on the ice Thursday for the opening of training camp at LECOM Harborcenter in Downtown Buffalo.

Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff liked what he had seen from his group on the opening day of camp.

"We’ve got a lot of belief in how we need to play and how we need to execute, but we also need an understanding of how hard it’s going to be, and the work we need to put in, and the areas we still need to improve," said Ruff on Thursday after practice. "I think when you watch just this first practice, I think our level of fitness is even way ahead of where we were at the start of last year, and especially the start of two years ago.”

Thursday was the first chance defenseman Owen Zellweger was able to suit up and work in with his new teammates. He skated on a defensive pairing with Owen Power. At 5-foot-10 and 193 pounds, Ruff liked what he saw of Zellweger on tape, and feels he provides more strength than his frame may indicate.

“He is a lot like Bo [Byram] in a lot of ways: Really good skater, he’s talented offensively, and I think he really closes quick in the D zone," Ruff said of the 23-year-old. "When I watch a lot of how he plays, Bo’s progression from Day 1 here to when he left, he turned into a real good defender. And I think once he gets wired into how we want to play, I think he’ll fit almost that same category. But I mean, obviously there’s options too.”

Last season, forwards Justin Danforth and Jiri Kulich missed significant time from the lineup after early-season health issues. Danforth suffered a season-ending knee injury on Oct. 15 after playing just four games, while Kulich's season ended prematurely after a blood-clotting issue was discovered in November.

While Ruff thought Danforth skated really well for someone they hadn’t seen in about a year, he knows Kulich is itching to get back to work and prove he's healthy and ready to return to action.

“He’s another guy that I looked at and thought, we haven’t seen him in a while. You almost pay attention every time he’s in the drill, or he’s skating in a tracking or system part of it, just to evaluate where he’s at. And I know talking to him, he wants to put last year behind him. He’s just super excited to try to prove he can be a guy that can make a difference for us,” Ruff said of Kulich.

Overall, Ruff expects a lot of their system to carry over from last season. It was successful, and they made tweaks throughout the season to improve it even further. He doesn’t anticipate any significant changes with how they game plan.

Here's how lines looked for the opening day of practice at training camp:

Forwards:

Krebs - Thompson - Doan
Benson - Ostlund - Quinn
McLeod - Norris - Helenius
Kulich - Carrick - Malenstyn
Kozak - Danforth

Defense:

Samuelsson - Dahlin
Power - Zellweger
Timmins - Crevier
Gilbert - Metsa

The Sabres will continue to practice over the next couple days, and have a scrimmage scheduled for Saturday. Ruff says because camp moves so quickly, they added the scrimmage to simulate another game-like situation during the ramp-up period.

The first preseason game is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 21 against the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.