BUFFALO – General manager Kevyn Adams understands that unless the Sabres win games, his words mean, well, nothing.
As training camp began Wednesday and another five-month offseason ended, Adams, who’s under internal and external pressure to end an NHL-record 14-year playoff drought, expressed his belief in the newest edition of the Sabres.
“I can’t stand up here and talk to our fan base and say anything other than I am genuinely excited about this team. I am,” he said in LECOM Harborcenter. “But we have to prove it on the ice. We have to win games.”
Winning, of course, cures all ails. Don’t want to hear about that embarrassing run of futility? Do something about it.
“Winning games will force other people to talk about, ‘Boy, you guys are winning a lot of games,’” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “Just win games. Play good hockey and win games. Talk is cheap.”
The team that convened Wednesday for physicals and testing looks similar to the one that ended last season on an encouraging 12-7-1 run but finished with only 79 points, far out of the playoff chase.
But the Sabres’ top offseason additions – right-shot defensemen Michael Kesselring and Conor Timmins and forwards Justin Danforth and Josh Doan – help address their desire to play a more defensive and physical style.
“We were very intentional about this in the offseason,” Adams said. “(We were) less worried about the talent and the scoring and (were) trying more to get that harder to play against, two-way, veteran players that understand how to play in this league. That, to me, is where the focus was and needed to be.”
They also beefed up their depth, creating more internal competition.
“I believe we’re ready to take a big step this year,” Adams said.
Some believed that step would be made last year, when Ruff, a franchise icon and one of the winningest coaches in NHL history, returned for his second run in Buffalo.
The Sabres started well enough, briefly moving into a playoff spot in November before a stunning 13-game losing streak kicked them down the standings.
At times, Ruff seemed dismayed he couldn’t get through to his team. Looking back, he said he did not have “a good enough handle” on his players almost a year ago when they left camp early for their season-opening European trip.
“I was optimistic about where some guys would be last year and I was wrong,” he said.
These days, Ruff feels he has a better handle on his guys. Players, meanwhile, likely have a better understanding of their coach’s expectations.
“Not many teams have a 44-goal scorer, a (36-goal scorer), a couple 20-goal scorers,” he said. “We need to be better at keeping it out of our net than we need (to be) about scoring more goals, and so I think there’s a real good understanding and where we lack the consistency.”
Having made strides late in the season, Ruff kept his coaching staff intact, although he acknowledged he explored “the opportunity to try to improve the staff.”
“I looked at last year, two new coaches coming in, myself and Seth Appert, and the continuity I want to carry from last year this year, knowing that all of us have to be better,” he said. “We all have to be better. Seth knows this group better, I know this group better. Marty (Wilford) is the one guy that’s been involved with the defense, and there’s a lot of areas that we can still continue to improve. …
“I believe in this group, I do. We spent endless hours. We know where there’s areas we need to improve and we’re going to improve.”
The Sabres did, however, change their strength and conditioning coach, hiring Brian Galivan to replace Ed Gannon. Ruff believes Galivan has quickly made an impression on players.
Expect the first sessions of training camp Thursday to be demanding.
“We’re gonna go through camp, and this is gonna be a really, really hard training camp,” Adams said. “Not as a punishment, more of, we need to raise our standard, and that’s been very clearly expressed to the players at the end of last year, through the changes we made with strength and conditioning – there’s a higher expectation.”