Camp Notebook | Adams and Ruff address the media

The Buffalo Sabres officially reported to training camp Wednesday, and with hockey season back in full swing, general manager Kevyn Adams and head coach Lindy Ruff addressed the media to discuss several topics surrounding the 2025-26 Sabres.

• Sabres 2025 training camp roster

One of the first talking points, naturally, was the status of Alex Tuch’s contract negotiations. The alternate captain, coming off a 36-goal, 67-point season with his typically strong defensive play, is entering the final season of his current deal and scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent next July 1.

Tuch, currently day-to-day with a minor injury, is eligible for an extension, and the Sabres don’t intend to let one of their most important players hit the open market.

“Alex has been told very clearly by myself and the organization how important he is to us; we want him here long term,” Adams said. “The good news is that he's said the exact same thing about being here. He wants to be here. He's made it clear to me and to us.

“And we've had good, productive conversations with the Bartletts this summer – that's his agency. These things take time. We're gonna work through it.”

Tuch doesn’t stand alone as an extension-eligible NHL star. Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov, Vegas’ Jack Eichel highlight the list of talent in the same boat as training camp begins, and the first big payday figures to set the table for the others.

“I don't think it's by accident that you haven't seen a lot of extensions coming through, especially with some really high-profile players,” Adams said. “I think it’s just the nature, maybe, of the players trying to figure out where the market is and where it's headed. The teams (are) trying to understand exactly where they can go from a cap perspective.”

The 29-year-old Syracuse native will earn a significant pay raise from his current $4.75 million cap hit, and everything from his first four seasons in Buffalo suggests he’s worth it. Adams called it a “priority” to reach an agreement with Tuch, but if negotiations extend into this a crucial season for the Sabres, the GM doesn’t expect it to become a distraction.

“Going to continue to talk to his agents here in the coming days and have some meetings lined up, and we’ll keep working at it,” Adams said. “I’m not going to put a deadline on it, though.”

Here’s more from Adams and Ruff on Day 1 of training camp.

Update on UPL

Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen began experiencing some pain as he ramped up his late-offseason training. The lower-body injury returned clean imaging but has been bothering Luukkonen during on-ice activity.

• Sabres injury updates: Tuch, Luukkonen, Greenway

“There's no alarms right now saying that it's a significant injury, but there was tweak that he didn't feel great,” Adams said. “… It's one of these situations where it's day to day, but could it stretch a little longer? Yes. Do we think that'll happen? No, but he may not be on the ice first day of practice. We're going to see how the next three or four days go.”

With this uncertainty surrounding its starting netminder, Buffalo signed 29-year-old Alexandar Georgiev, a veteran of 303 NHL games across eight seasons, to a one-year contract last Thursday. Georgiev led the league in wins in both 2022-23 and 2023-24 with Colorado, and although he struggled this past season, the Sabres see his potential for a bounce-back performance if called upon.

“I think he's proven that he's a good, quality goaltender in this league,” said Ruff, an assistant coach when Georgiev broke into the league with the Rangers. “I think he's got something to prove. I had several long conversations with him before we got into bringing him into camp. I think his head is in the right place, and I think he's a guy that we needed (for) protection, and he'll give us that.”

Added Adams: “I just felt like, organizationally, when you can add someone like that, especially with a little bit of the unknown on exactly where UPL will be, it was the right thing to do. And if you don't add someone like that, and you don't get the news you're expecting on UPL, and then if some little or tweaks happens to one of the other guys, all of a sudden you have really young guys in the pipeline that are potentially here.”

If Georgiev isn’t needed at the NHL level, his veteran presence could still prove useful alongside Devon Levi with the AHL’s Rochester Americans.

Full camp for Lindy

Last September, just six days into training camp, the Sabres departed Buffalo for the Global Series. This year, absent the logistical chaos of overseas travel, the team will enjoy a much smoother routine in preparation for the regular season.

“We get to plan our practices and practice every day; we get to meet in our own facility every day,” Ruff said. “I think that alone has a lot of value to it.”

The Global Series was especially disruptive for Ruff, who had even less time to familiarize himself with the team ahead of his first season back in Buffalo. With last year under his belt, plus a longer runway this training camp, the head coach feels he now has “a better handle on these players” and can make better roster decisions as a result. And a more comfortable and informed Ruff, who ranks fifth in NHL history with 900 wins behind the bench, should greatly benefit these Sabres.

“Our guys have had a good offseason,” Ruff said, “and now we’ve got to go out and go to work.”

Keeping the letters

Ruff said the Sabres are planning to keep the same on-ice leadership group from last season: Rasmus Dahlin as captain; Tuch, Tage Thompson and Mattias Samuelsson as alternate captains.

Tough training

When asked about the identity of the 2025-26 Sabres and their goals for the season, Adams and Ruff were adamant about one point: this team must be stronger defensively after allowing the third-most goals in the league last year. And when opponents roll out of KeyBank Center, win or lose, they should be thinking about how tough an opponent Buffalo was.

“I think we’ve been too easy to play against, and I’ll take responsibility for that,” Adams said. “And that’s not anything to do with age or fighting or any of that; it’s just being more competitive. Harder to play against, competitive – we identified players who we thought would check those boxes.

“… This is gonna be a really, really hard training camp. Not as a punishment, more of, we need to raise our standard, and that’s been very clearly expressed to the players [since] the end of last year, through the changes we made with strength and conditioning – there’s a higher expectation. So, that’s where you start.”

Buffalo will conclude training camp with a “team culture” retreat, as Ruff described it, to reinforce “how we want to treat each other, how we want to play, how, as a group, we’re going to come together as a family and get this done.”

With that, following weeks of practices and scrimmages, the Sabres expect to be all-in on the 2025-26 season, from the Oct. 9 opener through the April 15 finale and, if successful, a Stanley Cup Playoffs run.