Josh Norris entered training camp with a specific mindset, to prepare for his first full season with the Buffalo Sabres.
Be excited. Be confident. Be healthy.
Do that, and things will fall into place.
“Honestly, the last few years have been challenging for me, at times, with injuries and stuff like that,” Norris said. “Just your mindset, getting yourself into a good place where you’re excited to come to the rink every day and being confident, that’s my mindset.”
“My frame of mind has been in a much better place than it has been, in years past.”
Norris emerged as the Sabres’ top-line center during the preseason, with three goals and four assists in four preseason games. He averaged nearly 20 minutes of ice time a game and averaged nearly 60% on faceoffs, winning 37 and losing 25.
Norris had minimal concern about sustaining an injury, or how he fit in with a new team in his first training camp in Buffalo. Sabres coach Lindy Ruff summed up Norris’ mentality.
The Buffalo Sabres face a Monday deadline of trimming their regular season roster to 23 players. Sabres players discuss what they’ve learned from training camp experiences, including getting cut.
“The mindset that he was going to be our best centerman,” Ruff said Monday of the former University of Michigan standout. “He’s going to be one of our fittest guys and be our best centerman.”
Now, Norris has to carry that into the season for the Sabres, who open the season at 7 p.m. Thursday against the New York Rangers at KeyBank Center.
Norris’ focus for the preseason was on preparing for the regular season and regaining timing, chemistry with linemates and on the special-teams units. It’s also a time for a team to get on the same page.
“Everybody knew how important camp was going to be, and I thought everyone did a great job coming in shape,” said Norris, who is from Oxford, Michigan. “Now, it’s up to us to have our standard at a certain place, where only a certain play is acceptable. We know what that is. That’s all it is. It’s just a mindset, going forward.”
Consider Norris as one of the Sabres’ standard-bearers. He enters his seventh NHL season following his first training camp in Buffalo, six months after he joined the team from the Ottawa Senators in March, as part of a four-player trade for Dylan Cozens. An oblique injury limited Norris to a goal and an assist in three games with the Sabres, part of a 35-point season. In the last few years, he has never been able to stay healthy for an entire season.
He’s undergone three surgeries on his left shoulder since 2019, including season-ending surgery in March 2024, when he was with the Senators. The most games he’s played a season is 66, in 2021-22. He scored a career-best 35 goals and 55 points with the Senators that season.
He also said last month that this was the first year he has had a full summer to train for a season.
Nothing surprised him when he got into the thick of Ruff’s training camp.
He was prepared, and Ruff saw the essence of Norris’ capabilities when he scored a goal in a preseason game Oct. 1 against Pittsburgh. Penguins defenseman Ryan Shea tripped Norris, who immediately bounced back up inside the left circle, then skated in to beat Penguins goalie Arturs Silovs late in the first period on a backhand shot.
“He got healthy,” Ruff said. “He wasn’t healthy when we got him last year and he had a heck of a summer, training wise. If you watched the way he skates right now, he’s been able to pull away from people, the one goal (against Pittsburgh), down on his knees and back up.
“I think he’s the player that we expected we were going to get. Faceoffs will be a big deal. He’s a guy we can use in every situation.
Zach Benson played at left wing on a line with Norris and Tage Thompson in two preseason games and saw Norris’ quickness on the ice, and his ability to analyze how plays unfold on the ice.
“He thinks the game at a high level,” Benson said.
And, Benson said, there’s no secret regarding what’s helped Norris play at a high level, even in the preseason.
“He works his (tail) off, behind the scenes, doing everything he can,” Benson said. “Being his teammate and seeing what he does behind the scenes, there is no surprise to how good of a hockey player he is.”
Now, it’s Norris’ time to prove his value with the Sabres.
Injury update
Benson returned to practice Monday morning at KeyBank Center, as did defenseman Mattias Samuelsson, who wore a yellow noncontact jersey after missing more than a week of training camp with an upper-body injury.
Ruff said Samuelsson “should be definitely a possibility for Thursday,” against the Rangers.
“I felt good,” Samuelsson said after Monday’s practice, his first since Sept. 25.
“Being on the sidelines and not being with the group, it’s never fun, for sure.
If Samuelsson returns to the lineup Thursday, it will help a defensive corps that’s currently without Michael Kesselring and Owen Power due to injuries. Ruff said Kesselring and goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen won’t be available against the Rangers.
Benson also had a full practice and skated on a line with Norris and Thompson.
“We’ll see how he feels tomorrow but I have no issues with him,” Ruff said of Benson.
Power (muscle strain) and Jordan Greenway (core surgery) also skated Monday morning, and Ruff said they were “progressing.”
Sabres claim goalie
The Sabres claimed goalie Colten Ellis off waivers. Ellis enters his fifth pro season and was previously in the St. Louis Blues’ system, but has not played in the NHL. Ellis was 22-14-3 with a .922 saves percentage and a 2.63 goals-against average in 42 games with Springfield of the American Hockey League.
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Rachel Lenzi
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