"I thought they worked incredibly hard today. I thought they gave me everything they had," Ruff said a couple of hours later, in his first post-practice meeting with reporters as Sabres coach since he was fired on Feb.

“Today is Day 1 on our step to try to do something special. It’s an opportunity and that’s what I talked to the players about yesterday. It’s an opportunity to raise our standard. Every one of us in this organization has to raise our personal standard and that’s what I challenged the group on yesterday and Lindy did as well.”