Sabres Coach Lindy Ruff

It's easy to tell when Lindy Ruff is in the room. His voice commands attention and projects confidence, both in himself and his knowledge of the topic he's discussing. He is quick-witted, with an acidic touch sprinkled in when the situation warrants.
The Buffalo Sabres coach added to his resume Thursday, passing Toronto's Pat Quinn as the coach with the most wins with his current team. Winger Jason Pominville points to Ruff's orating skills as a reason for the success.
"He's a really good speaker," Pominville said. "Once he walks in the locker room and starts talking to us, I think it's pretty easy to listen to him. He catches everybody's attention."
Jay McKee, already a Sabres defenseman when Ruff took over in the summer of 1997, said the coach's ability to adapt to changes in the game has been vital to the victories. It takes longevity to amass 284 wins with the same team, and those who don't change don't last.
"His coaching style - not just him but [all the coaches] back here - they prepare us more now before games than ever before. They do their homework," McKee said after the victory over the Maple Leafs that broke the tie with Quinn. "They don't just leave the game tonight and then just show up in Atlanta and say, "Go get 'em, boys.'
"They're going to go over all the game tape of tonight; they don't just fast-forward through it, either. They spend hours watching the game tapes, showing players what they could have done here, what they could have done there, trying to improve us all the time.
"And then after they are done watching this game, they'll look forward to Atlanta and watch game tape of them - what they've been doing, their trends - and then have us as prepared as we can be. That wasn't exactly how it was before, so they've changed with the technology."
General Manager Darcy Regier hired Ruff, hoping he could establish a long-term connection like the one he witnessed on Long Island between GM Bill Torrey and coach Al Arbour. It's worked so far. He credits Ruff for being able to understand his players.
"I think, quite honestly, he's continuing to get better," Regier said. "First of all, he believes in his players, and I think over the years he has a better understanding of their abilities and from that is able to help them more by, at times, demanding more or persuading them that they're capable of more."
Ruff said he didn't know about the victory milestone - which is subject to daily change depending on the fortunes of the Leafs and Sabres - but he does know he was close to never even having to mention it. The Sabres missed the playoffs the last three seasons, and his job was in jeopardy.
"It looked pretty bleak for a while. We had a couple tough years," he said. "We're on the way up."
Improved talent can help almost any coach look better, and the Sabres are definitely up from recent years. There's no way Jason Botterill, Denis Hamel and Radoslav Hecl would be in this lineup, as they were two seasons ago.
"I think you adjust with the players you have," Ruff said. "I think we're a talented group that's surprised a lot of people. For myself, I just let those guys play - not worry so much about the little mistakes in the game, more worried about the things that are happening all the time."
Ruff added to McKee's preparation comment, saying it's important for the players to see that he and assistants Scott Arniel, Brian McCutcheon and Jim Corsi have worked as hard off the ice as they expect the players to work on it.
"Players need to see and know that we've done our homework, that we can give them one or two things that may help against an opponent, whether that's on entries, whether that's on our neutral-zone defensive play, or whether that's on special teams," Ruff said. "I think that every little bit helps, and if we can grab hold of one or two little things every night that could maybe give us an edge, that's what we're trying to do.
"We do a presentation on the other team's goalie every night. Special teams has always been part of a bigger meeting, and we'll make those individual meetings now. Brian will take care of the penalty-killing part of the meeting, Scott takes care of the power-play part of the meeting, Jimmy does the goaltending - and I don't do a damn thing."
After the laughter subsided, he added: "No, then I'll usually go over the other team's tendencies and talk about what we want to do to counter some of that."
The Sabres' next game is Tuesday in Atlanta. With two more victories, Ruff will move into 30th place on the all-time coaching victory list. For now, most wins with the same team among active coaches will do just fine.
"I think it's a big honor," McKee said. "Coaches in this league are hired to be fired. You don't see guys stay around that long, so it just goes to show what he's done for this team, this city and for the players."