Boston, Mass. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff had some bad news about his No. 1 center Josh Norris following Saturday's morning skate in Boston.
"He’s going to miss a significant amount of time, and I don’t know what amount that is for sure. But he’s still being evaluated," said Ruff ahead of his team's matchup with the Boston Bruins.
Ruff would not say what the injury is, but did say it is an upper-body injury.
"It’s nothing related to what he’s had in the past," Ruff noted.
Ruff says he had an opportunity to speak with his injured center, and as you can imagine, he’s devasted.
"He’s pretty disappointed," Ruff said. "I spent a good time talking to him, and he’s just disappointed. He put a lot of work in this summer, and it’s just a tough injury."
Meanwhile, Sabres defenseman Owen Power is with the team in Boston, and took part in the optional morning skate. Ruff says he’d see how he feels afterwards, but he may play.
Ruff also confirmed Saturday that winger Zach Benson was released from the hospital on Friday and is improving. He is not on the trip with the Sabres.
Moving onto Game 2 in Boston on Saturday night, the Sabres know they must improve at the offensive end of the ice.
"We’ve got to get to the other team’s goaltender a little bit better," Ruff said. "I thought we did a good job with that last year, and we were missing that net-front and that second effort around net-front to make it really tough on the opposition’s goaltender.
"I thought defensively, we played a real strong game. But offensively, we just left too much out there."
With Norris not available for the power play, Ryan McLeod will get the first opportunity with the first unit.
"He’s a good transporter bringing the puck up ice, which will help us on entries. His play making ability is good. We like a left-handed player on that side," Ruff said.
"We’re going to take a look at it. Obviously we’re going to evaluate pretty short-term, and we’ve got a couple of other options we could try, but we feel right now that he’s probably our best guy."
Meanwhile, the Bruins are off to a good start under new head coach Marco Sturm. They walked into Washington and beat the Capitals, 3-1, and then in their home opener, they edged the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-3, in overtime.
Their big goal scorer David Pastrnak has four points in the first two games.
Jeremy Swayman struggled last season, but he stopped 35-of-36 shots in Washington.
"They’ve still got the offense of a Pastrnak, of a [Pavel] Zacha - who’s got an unbelievable shot. You’ve got a couple of ‘D’ back there that are joining the rush, making it really tough on the opposition with [Charlie] McAvoy and [Mason] Lohrei. I think you have a little bit of a different makeup with the third and fourth line, where they’re really heavy around the net, a lot of pucks to the net. We’re going have to be strong around the paint."
Join Brian Koziol for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 6 p.m. when you’ll hear from Ruff, Alex Tuch and Bo Byram.