The Buffalo Sabres are off to a decent start to the 2025-26 season, as they look to break their playoff drought. Despite having young, talented players, they have not made the playoffs since 2011. The Sabres have been without one of those young players, center Josh Norris, since opening night with an upper-body injury. Buffalo head coach Lindy Ruff has the latest on his progress.
“I’ve talked to him, he said he’s feeling better,” Ruff said Wednesday, per Bill Hoppe of Buffalo Hockey Beat. “He’s not in that feeling great category yet, but he’s feeling better. And (we) really just want to keep progressing him with no setbacks.” Ruff then said that the center has resumed skating.
The Sabres traded Dylan Cozens to the Ottawa Senators for Norris and more at the 2025 trade deadline. Norris fell out of favor in Ottawa in part because of his lengthy injury history. While Cozens was key to Ottawa's playoff push last year, Norris has played just four games for Buffalo.
When Norris suffered the injury in the first game, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported that the injury timeline was about eight weeks. Ruff has previously said that the timeline is not far off. That would put his return in the later stages of November.
The Sabres are 5-4-4, among the many Eastern Conference teams hovering around NHL .500. Getting Norris back in the middle of the ice would be huge, but they need to win games in the interim to stick around. Their playoff chances in recent years have been done in by poor starts. They cannot let that happen again this year.
The Sabres will continue to go through the season without their second-line center. Their next game is on Thursday against the scuffling St Louis Blues before they hit the road for a four-game road trip.
