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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 8, 2007

Lindy Ruff

DAVID KEON: We have with us Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff. Lindy will be coaching the Eastern Conference All-Star team this year. In his ninth season behind the Sabres bench, he's led Buffalo to 63 points and the best record in the Eastern Conference.
Lindy will be making his second All-Star coaching appearance, having served as head coach of the World All-Stars in the 1999 All-Star Game in Tampa Bay. He will be assisted by Atlanta Thrashers head coach Bob Hartley. Thanks to Lindy for joining us and thanks to Mike Gilbert of the Sabres public relations department for making the arrangements.
We'll open it up for questions for Lindy.

Q. Did you play in any All-Star games? If you did, what are your memories?
LINDY RUFF: The answer is no, I never played in an All-Star Game. Don't have a lot of memories.

Q. What will you take from going there as a coach? Will you let guys do what they want to do? Does the coach have any bearing on what goes on in an All-Star Game?
LINDY RUFF: I think my last experience coaching, I'm 0-1 now in All-Star games. We're going to have to put a little bit of a game plan together, try to win this one.

Q. Probably play the same way your own team plays?
LINDY RUFF: Yeah, hopefully. That has been a recipe for success so far.
No, I think a very lightly structured game. I think the competitiveness in the players will really take over.

Q. Randy Carlyle was asked about Rory Fitzpatrick, if he were to make the All-Star Game. He said that Rory wouldn't likely receive a shift that often. What were your take be on that? How would you handle that situation if he did make the team?
LINDY RUFF: Well, I think obviously it's a tough situation for Rory to be in. I think overall he handled the situation very well. The All-Star team is based usually on the players that have performed the best in the first half of the year. Rory's situation, Rory is a great guy, a great competitor. The All-Star voting wasn't meant to go that way. I guess if he was in, as a coach you would probably limit his ice time in lieu of the guys it was meant to be for.

Q. What do you recall playing against Randy as a player? Any memorable nights?
LINDY RUFF: No. You know what, I don't. I really don't. I have respect for Randy. I thought he was a good competitor. He's a very intense coach. You know, I know of him. We're not friends or anything, but he's certainly done an exceptional job this year with Anaheim.

Q. What is the difference when you go a long-time NHL player who leaves the game figuring he knows a lot about it to coaching in the league for several years? How much different is your outlook on the average hockey game today than it was when you were a 13-year veteran?
LINDY RUFF: My outlook has changed greatly from the playing days to the coaching days because I just have tremendous respect for the conditioning of today's athlete and how good a skater they all are, how well-prepared they are from my playing days, where workouts were most times optional. Your conditioning program wasn't near the level that these guys are at.
To watch these guys perform at an elite level night after night, sometimes four games in six nights, I think it's a tremendous feat for a lot of players. That part of the game has really changed.

Q. So many people salute you for the job you've done. Long-standing coach in the NHL. Had your ups and downs. Must feel pretty good right now, your team has picked up where you left off last year. To know that the coaching fraternity eats them up and spits them out, yet you're still there after all these years, what does that mean to you?
LINDY RUFF: I take a lot of pride in the fact I've been able to survive, go on. If you look at our team now, how it's changed to the level we play at now to maybe the level we were at four, five years ago, really as a coach just trying to utilize the strengths, what you have for players, utilize their strengths.
Obviously our team is built with a lot of skilled offensive players. We're trying to play to that strength. I think the players the last couple years have had a lot of fun playing. It's showed in our game. I'm taking a lot of pride in the fact I'm still here. I realize going through bankruptcy, new ownership, part of the fact I'm still here is you got to have a little bit of luck involved. I feel, I've said it before, the right owner probably got the team, liked what he saw, decided to really keep things in place.
I think there's lots of examples when new management or new ownership comes in, they want to start clean. They didn't. I think that was a pretty gutsy move on their part.

Q. From an on-ice standpoint, your team has picked off where they left off last year. Not all teams that had the playoff success you did last year are able to do that. Why has your group been able to pick up where they left off?
LINDY RUFF: I think the players deserve a lot of credit for staying focused throughout the summer and coming into camp in tremendous shape, realizing that we really didn't accomplish what we wanted to accomplish. That was to win the Stanley Cup. I think you're always concerned with a short off-season, where the players will be asked when they come back to camp the next year. But our focus was very good, training camp was very good. We were able to pick up right where we left off. A lot of that credit lies on where the players' heads are, where their bodies were at when it came to coming back to camp.

Q. The Presidents' Trophy, is that something you shoot for, something you look at? How important would that be for the Sabres to win it?
LINDY RUFF: Well, I think it's a great goal. Is it important? In the big scheme of things, it's not what we're after. I think we're on our way to try to win the Cup. If the Presidents' Trophy gets in the way, I'm okay with that.
It's not something that we focus on. Really we focus on some of the areas that are going to allow us to be better, be effective in the playoffs. If we get there, we get there.
It's really not our ultimate goal.
DAVID KEON: Thanks very much, Lindy.
LINDY RUFF: Thank you.
DAVID KEON: We'll see you in Dallas.

End of FastScripts

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