Lindy Ruff Named Jack Adams Finalist for Fifth Time
Lindy Ruff is a finalist for the Jack Adams Award after guiding the Buffalo Sabres to their first playoff berth since 2011. It is his fifth time in the running for the NHL coach of the year award, and this season’s vote comes after Buffalo finished with 109 points and the Atlantic Division title.
Ruff, Muse and Cooper
Ruff is one of three finalists, joined by Pittsburgh’s Dan Muse and Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper. The winner is decided by a poll of members of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association, and the award goes to the coach judged to have contributed the most to his team’s success.
That puts Buffalo back at the center of the league’s coaching discussion. Ruff already won the award in 2005-06, the same season he first reached finalist status, and he was also a finalist in 2006-07, 2015-16 and 2022-23.
Buffalo’s 50-win season
The Sabres finished with 50 wins, the third-highest total in franchise history, and their 109 points ranked fifth in team history. Buffalo also won 39 games after Dec. 9, the most in the NHL from that point forward, and posted a.783 points percentage over that stretch.
The run turned fast. On Dec. 9, the Sabres were in last place in the Eastern Conference, and a victory in Edmonton started a 10-game winning streak that helped pull them into a division-winning position.
Sabres defense under Ruff
Buffalo also tied for second in the NHL with 55 goals from defensemen, another marker of how the roster produced across the lineup. Ruff’s earlier Sabres teams took different shapes, from the hard-nosed group built around Dominik Hasek in the late 1990s to the high-flying version in the mid-2000s.
Mattias Samuelsson said Ruff would “come in and tell you he’s gonna share the morning coffee and then let a couple guys hear it” and that “he definitely puts the group on notice about the standard around here.” Rasmus Dahlin said, “When it’s time, he turns it on, and there’s no f-ing around. You really have to bring it, otherwise you have to hear it, and that’s what I love. There’s no days off with him as coach, that’s for sure.”
For Buffalo, the award race now tracks the same season-long climb that ended a long drought and delivered a division title. For Ruff, it is a fifth finalist nod with another chance to add to the 2005-06 trophy already on his shelf.
