‘Full throttle’ | Inside Jack Quinn’s game-changing offseason

The sun is hardly up, an orange glow just peeking over the tufts of the trees, and Jack Quinn is smiling.

Those around him – the rest of the hockey players training with Tony Greco in his indoor-outdoor private studio in Manotick, Ontario – are still rubbing sleep out of their eyes. For most, it takes a few coffees to get wound up and ready to face the morning ahead – after all, what awaits them is a grueling workout, one that Greco says is intended to “stress the athlete out.”

But Quinn doesn’t need much winding up. He’s the only guy, out of the dozens of pros Greco trains each summer, who walks into the studio with a smile on his face, ready to work.

“But then, when it’s time to train,” Greco told Sabres.com, “he just totally switches. He’s locked right into the zone until it’s over.”

It’s similar to what Sabres fans are seeing on the ice – a Quinn who’s strong and focused on the puck, who’ll pick it up off the boards, beat a defender one-on-one and pick his corner past the goaltender.

Then and only then – once the puck finds twine, or the last rep of Greco’s punishing workout is completed – will Quinn break out in that signature smile.

“He’s like an on-and-off switch,” Greco said.

“When it's time to do a set or his reps, he's locked in, and you kind of see that switch in him,” added Jake Nitsche, Sabres head strength and conditioning coach. “And then when he's resting, then he's all goofy.”

Quinn’s mastery of the offseason has yielded the likes of a breakout year – 9 goals, 7 assists through 17 games, pacing for 44 goals and 79 points. The former eighth-overall pick, after question marks, injury struggles, healthy scratches and high expectations, seems to have finally hit his stride.

“It’s kind of like, ‘finally,’” said captain Rasmus Dahlin. “He’s been working so hard for so many years, and now it's finally going his way. He's always been playing great. He always competes, but now the production is coming too, which is unreal.”

“He’s had to really work to get where he is, and I think it was never a question of ‘can he do it?’ or, ‘can he be this?’ It was when it was going to happen,” Nitsche said. “I think some guys just need some more time to figure it out. Like, it's the NHL; it's a hard league to jump into as a young kid. He's still young, and I think you kind of forget that a little bit because he is mature.”

‘He’ll go across the world if that’s what it takes’

Greco felt like he’d barely finished watching the Sabres’ 2026 playoff run when Quinn showed up at his doorstep.

“I was shocked how early he came in,” Greco said. “He came right back and right into the gym.

“And he was keen. He was really keen. I saw it in his eyes, I saw the fire in him every workout.”

Since his OHL days, Quinn has spent every summer with Greco. A former IAKSA kickboxing gold medalist who’s been training NHL athletes for more than 20 years, Greco helped Quinn prepare for his draft year in 2020 and also spearheaded Quinn’s rehab and recovery from his Achilles injury back in the 2023 offseason – a regimen that ultimately shaved weeks off the expected recovery time.

The past two summers, though, have been eye-opening for both parties. Greco estimates that Quinn has packed on more than 10 pounds of muscle in those two years since regaining full health.

“I just dealt with a lot of adversity. It sucks being out that long and dealing with all the stress of it,” said Quinn, who had an additional lower-body surgery less than a year after his Achilles procedure. “The injuries probably slowed me down a little. I wasn't able to train really the way I wanted at all for two summers. … But I think two full summers now, it's put me in a really good spot and made a lot of improvements with my strength and speed. And I think it's kind of translated to my success.”

Quinn’s offseason training is largely based back home, outside Ottawa. Most days, he’s at Greco’s studio in the early mornings, sipping on espresso before enduring a high-intensity lift.

Other days, he’s commuting out to Muskoka, Ontario, a quaint lakeside town that’s blossomed into an offseason training hub for NHL players. This past summer, Quinn crashed with Ryan McLeod and spent a week on the ice as part of the Muskoka Hockey pro camp, which enabled Quinn to share the ice with the sport’s very best: Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, John Tavares, Taylor Hall, to name some names.

Quinn even goes intercontinental with his offseasons – the past two summers, he’s crossed the pond to train with Rasmus Dahlin in Gothenburg. For some, a vacation in Sweden is just that – a vacation. But not for Quinn.

“I’m not much of a sightseer,” Quinn admitted. “I don't know. It’s kind of just hockey… and golf.”

“His summers (are) all about getting better, and he’ll go across the world if that's what it takes,” Dahlin said. “I love having him there, and he grinds.”

‘Building a very efficient engine’

Greco has a general rule of thumb. His staple lower-body exercise utilizes the hex bar, which his athletes deadlift with power. An optimal benchmark, he says, is an athlete doubling their weight – if they weigh 200 pounds, they should lift 400 pounds on the hex bar for one to three reps.

Quinn, who weighs in at 185 pounds, has a max of 520 pounds.

“It’s insane,” Greco said, “for a guy that lean to do that kind of weight. That means that his density of his muscle is just getting full throttle out of the output, which as an athlete, you want that.”

Greco’s training is unique – rather than focusing on stacking weight and lifting the heaviest, Greco aims to prepare the athlete for what they’re facing on the ice. That means lateral transfers, quick movements, explosivity: “The game is so short, it’s that millisecond. You’re not training for five seconds, you’re training for that millisecond,” Greco explained.

Greco’s 10-week program is divided into five different training blocks, each carefully stacked one after the other to build right up until the start of NHL training camp. The regimen – which Quinn shares with the other NHLers Greco trains, including L.A.’s Brandt Clarke and Ottawa’s Claude Giroux – includes three lifts per week, occurring Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Each lift is about an hour long.

Then there are the “accessory days,” as Greco calls them, which happen on Tuesday and Thursday. Those are the days Quinn isn’t necessarily heavy lifting but is put through “stress” that mimics game situations. Lots of sprints and lunges, reps with added heavy weight and just bodyweight superset to maximize power and explosiveness.

“That’s why he's able to move so quickly,” Greco said. “We'll mimic a lot of movements very similar (to) on the ice that require lateral power, linear power, so the brain gets adapted to that.

“Under any critical situations, like if he's in the corner, he's going to be less intimidated. The brain is just going to react saying, ‘Yeah, okay, Jack, don't worry, you've been here before. Keep going.’”

This year, Quinn has been able to shake off defenders and have his way with the ice more than ever before. Take the Nov. 6 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets, a two-point night for Quinn. For his secondary assist on linemate Josh Doan’s goal, Quinn receives the puck in the corner and is able to hang onto it and shrug off a Columbus d-man with a powerful stride before swinging it towards the net.

Quinn’s goals of his own are an equally impressive display of newfound power and decisiveness – for his eighth goal of the season in Los Angeles, Quinn receives the puck on the far edge of the left circle and charges into the slot, drawing in a defender, and rips a hard shot past both him and the goalie.

“Strength training is not going to make you a better hockey player, but it gives you the tools to maximize what you have from a talent perspective,” Nitsche said. “I think that's what you're seeing with Jack – he's trained really hard, his body's in a really good spot. He's healthy, he’s strong right now, he’s powerful … He put a lot of work into getting stronger while maintaining his explosiveness and the things that make him Jack Quinn.”

What makes Quinn uniquely hard to defend? Ask Buffalo’s top-pair defensemen, Dahlin and Mattias Samuelsson, who have to go against Quinn every practice. Quinn’s skillset is versatile – he’s just as like to take a d-man one-on-one, deking it past them, as he is just shooting right through.

“He can score from anywhere, so you don't want to give him too much room,” Samuelsson said. “But I think he's just always willing to take you one-on-one, and a lot of guys aren't willing to do that. You’ve kind of got to be ready for everything. He'll shoot through you. He'll try to get around you too. I think he's pretty unpredictable in that way. He always kind of keeps the defenders on (their) toes.”

“I think he looks faster. He looks more stable within contact and initiating, and he's not getting bounced around as much when the physicality picks up,” Nitsche said. “I think all those things help him create more space for himself and give him more opportunity to use his skill and his talents that he has as a hockey player.”

‘I don’t think it’s very surprising’

The rate at which Quinn is producing has been eye-opening – to most, at least.

For Samuelsson, longtime teammate, friend and former roommate of Quinn’s, it’s anything but.

“He’s such a hockey nerd,” Samuelsson said. “He loves analyzing everything. We used to live together, and we would just watch games at night, and he would nitpick everything.”

Samuelsson, who came up with Quinn in Rochester, says Quinn was often in the shooting room, perfecting his craft. Or on the ice, working on his stride, or in the gym, getting stronger.

He also saw Quinn’s long recovery process from his injuries back in the 2023-24 season. Samuelsson, who’s also battled through injuries in his career thus far, notes the “mental side” of being hurt can be just as crippling, especially for the young kid Quinn was at the time.

“For him to be able to score as many goals as he has now, (it’s) a great case of the ‘work pays off’ for sure,” Samuelsson said.

Quinn’s only 25. He’ll continue to get stronger as he enters his prime, especially now that his injury setbacks are behind him.

“He's worked his butt off all summer, and he's continued to work his butt off during the season,” Nitsche said. “He's only gotten better on our side of things in the gym, as year two with him has gone on. He’s doing all the right things. … He’s got good habits, got good work ethic, and good things happen to people that have those things.”

With a grin, Samuelsson was able to sum things up best.

“He's starting to look like a man now, not like a little boy anymore,” he said. “He’s stronger. He's faster. You can see it playing out.”