{"id":440170,"date":"2024-04-22T17:46:48","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T21:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=440170"},"modified":"2024-04-22T17:46:48","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T21:46:48","slug":"lindy-ruff-hired-again-by-buffalo-sabres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/22\/lindy-ruff-hired-again-by-buffalo-sabres\/","title":{"rendered":"Lindy Ruff Hired Again by Buffalo Sabres"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s old is new again as the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/18\/nhl-rumours-buffalo-sabres-and-columbus-blue-jackets\/\" target=\"_self\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> have hired <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/ruffli01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-22_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lindy Ruff<\/a> back. He was the team&#8217;s head coach from 1997-2013 and was the last coach to lead the team to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. News of the deal was broken Monday afternoon by Sportsnet&#8217;s Elliotte Friedman. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wgrz.com\/article\/sports\/nhl\/sabres\/sabres-hire-lindy-ruff-as-head-coach\/71-c9b63f2b-98b4-4113-9df7-396c0624add0\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WGRZ Sports Director<\/a> Adam Benigni also helped break news of the deal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Buffalo Sabres have hired Lindy Ruff as the team&#39;s head coach. Ruff ranks first among Buffalo head coaches all-time in wins (571) and playoff wins (57). His 864 wins as a head coach rank fifth all-time in NHL history. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ksKuGoay8f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ksKuGoay8f<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Buffalo Sabres PR (@SabresPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SabresPR\/status\/1782517253256159606?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 22, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Lindy Ruff Hired a Second Time by Sabres<\/h2>\n<p>Ruff returns to Western New York after head coaching stops with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/22\/vegas-golden-knights-vs-dallas-stars-first-round-series-preview\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Stars<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/19\/revisiting-bold-predictions-for-new-jersey-devils-in-2023-24\/\" target=\"_self\">New Jersey Devils.<\/a> He also had a brief tenure with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/21\/new-york-rangers-vs-washington-capitals-first-round-series-preview\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Rangers<\/a> as an assistant coach. His NHL coaching career started with an assistant stint with the<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/21\/florida-panthers-vs-tampa-bay-lightning-first-round-series-preview\/\" target=\"_self\"> Florida Panthers<\/a>. The Warburg, Alberta native ranks first in franchise history in victories (571) and post-season wins (57). His 864 wins as a head coach rank fifth all-time in NHL history.<\/p>\n<p>The 64-year-old has a career record of 864-679-231 in the regular season and a 71-61 Stanley Cup Playoffs record. Ruff won the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/a\/adamsja01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-22_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jack Adams<\/a> Award for the league&#8217;s coach of the year in 2006.<\/p>\n<p>He was a team captain for the club from 1986 through 1989 and was an assistant captain for the team from 1984 until 1986. Ruff was a second round pick, 32nd overall in the 1979 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n<h3>What it Means<\/h3>\n<p>General manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/a\/adamske01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-22_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevyn Adams<\/a> is trying to capture lightning in a bottle again by having Lindy Ruff hired again. The pressure is on the Sabres to get back to the playoffs after many years in the wilderness.<\/p>\n<p>Ruff has plenty of attachment and history with this club. Some may question re-hiring the veteran coach, but he knows the city and knows the market. There&#8217;s a lot of young talent on this roster, but it&#8217;s a matter of putting it all together.<\/p>\n<p>The pressure is on Adams and Ruff to bring a winner back to the Queen City. However, the Sabres are in a very tough Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s old is new again as the Buffalo Sabres have hired Lindy Ruff back. He was the team&#8217;s head coach from 1997-2013 and was the last coach to lead the team to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. News of the deal was broken Monday afternoon by Sportsnet&#8217;s Elliotte Friedman. WGRZ Sports Director Adam Benigni also helped [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":137468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4547],"tags":[5833,5168,1136],"class_list":["post-440170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sabres","category-hockey","tag-buffalo-sabres-news","tag-kevyn-adams","tag-lindy-ruff"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}