Lindy Ruff speaks on Sabres' scoring and play at 5-on-5 in the early goings of the 2024-25 season

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Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff joined the "Jeremy and Joe Show" on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, to speak on his team's scoring and play at 5-on-5, while also addresses what the group needs to improve upon in the early goings of the 2024-25 season.

Transcript

00:00It's important that we really just keep working on, you know, what we do best, and I think

00:08the five-on-five play has been good.

00:11Our five-on-five scoring is right there at the top of the league.

00:15Defending, we've had a couple games get away from us, but overall, our defending, we're

00:20getting out of the zone a lot quicker, which when you don't play on your own end, gives

00:25you a better chance to get up ice and create offense.

00:27I think, still, I think we've left a lot of plays out there, we've missed a lot of

00:32quality opportunities where we haven't executed or hit a crossbar, hit a post, you know, so

00:39I feel if we get in rhythm with when we get the high-quality opportunity, our shooting

00:45percentage right now in the league is one of the lowest, so there are areas that we

00:51just got to continue to work on to make ourselves a better team.

00:54Do you feel like that is starting to come around, at least with your top line?

00:57It feels like Thompson and Paterka are starting to find the net, so maybe it's just about

01:01getting more out of some of the other lines now on that front?

01:04Yeah, you know, I think you look at that line now has been together, Paterka was out for

01:10a while, so it was a different piece in there for a couple games.

01:14It seems like they've gathered a little bit of rhythm with the number of opportunities

01:18they're getting, and you don't need a lot of opportunities for Tage or for JJ, and I

01:24think that Tuck is a great piece, good defensively, long stick, gets his opportunities, probably

01:31has missed as high-quality opportunities as anybody on the team, so I like the way the

01:37line is going, and I'd like to see him continue.

01:39This might be a tough question to answer, but when you lay that all out, you know, the

01:43five-on-five and the chance you're getting, do you feel like, and this can kind of be

01:47spun a couple different ways, like, just keep going because there are good things,

01:51and that almost ends up sounding like, do you feel like you might have deserved a little

01:55better than what you've got so far?

01:57Well, you know, I think if you look at the L.A. King game, where we played a really strong

02:03game and you don't get 25 to 30 chances in many games, and we hit posts and crossbars

02:11in that game and gave up a lot, we didn't give up very much the whole game, and you

02:15end up losing the hockey game.

02:17So I think there are a couple games that we could have deserved better.

02:20I really feel the Pittsburgh game, we took too many penalties, too many ill-advised penalties,

02:27maybe tough calls, but you still can't take penalties.

02:29I think we got back to playing our game in Chicago, played a strong two-way game, and

02:38ended up winning the hockey game.

02:39So it's trying to remain consistent.

02:41I think every team has a way they want to play or a way that they think their group

02:46can create, and for the most part, each team has that scheme defensively, whether it's

02:52a little bit more man-on-man or if it's a little bit more collapsed zone that you can

02:56take advantage of.

02:57So we're just going to continue to work on our game.

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