Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres had a big piece of their offense return to the lineup on Monday from injury, as Josh Norris managed to put up a three-point night, including two goals in a 5-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets at KeyBank Center.
It has been a long anticipated return for Norris after suffering an injury late in the season-opener back on Oct. 9. The 26-year-old provided a nice jolt of energy to the lineup that Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff has been waiting to see in action.
"I think we saw a lot about what we've talked about. A great speed guy that can find the holes, did a real nice job on the power play for us. I thought it was exactly what you want to see, exactly what we need," said Ruff on Tuesday during his weekly appearance with the "Jeremy and Joe Show" on WGR. "I thought you got to see the speed up the middle. He almost broke free in the third period again, scored a heck of a goal for us right at the start of the third. But I thought that line was excellent. I thought our group, the whole team, played well, and it was a great return."
Over the last few games, the Sabres have managed to regain some success with wins in two of the last three games, and five wins over an eight-game stretch. Ruff feels there's been some really good segments of play that the team hasn't got rewarded for.
"We went through a tough segment where I think we lost four games and in overtime, which really hurt us. And you look at the number of players that were out at that time. I've said this when we started getting healthy here and we started to get some bodies back, our game has really started to look the way we've all envisioned it," Ruff said with Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase. "Outshooting teams, defensively keeping the chances down, limiting the high danger odd-man rush-type of situations, and playing good away from the puck. So we know what it's going to take. It's gonna take a real team effort. Again, we've battled ourselves back to .500, and now we move on to the next game."
Goaltending has been a carousel this season, as the Sabres continue to carry three goalies on the roster. When asked what the situation could look like moving forward and if a change could be made, Ruff seems to have a plan for all three netminders.
"We've talked about looking at the schedule, where guys would play. There's the odd time we look at a goaltenders' record against certain teams, or how they played in a certain building. I can tell you that [Colten] Ellis gave us an excellent game in Minnesota. We had a tough travel night coming back, where we didn't get back in here. I think players probably would have gotten to bed about 4:30 in the morning, and you're sitting on the plane for, I'd say, somewhere between four and five hours. And he's got a little bit of a tight back, so we're managing that," Ruff explained. "And I said last night was the reason 'UPL' [Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen] went in was he was our freshest goaltender, and we wanted to get some maintenance work done with Ellis. That was the decision on last night's game, but I could easily see if a guy gets a hot hand, you're gonna roll with a hot hand."
