Oct. 13th: According to Sabres correspondent Heather Engel, head coach Lindy Ruff suggests that Norris is expected to miss eight weeks of action. Still, he is receiving a second opinion on the injury. Should the second opinion agree on the recovery timeline, that would project Norris’ return in the first week of December, costing him over 25 games of the 2025-26 campaign.
Oct. 11th: On Friday, the Sabres were still evaluating Josh Norris’ upper-body injury to determine how long he might be out for. The evaluation appears to be ongoing still but the outcome is not ideal as head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters, including Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News (Twitter link), that Norris will miss “a significant amount of time” due to the injury.
It is a tough but all-too-familiar blow for the 26-year-old as injuries have dogged him throughout his seven NHL seasons. The injury occurred late in Thursday’s season opener against the Rangers off a faceoff and while he was eventually able to get up and go to the bench under his own power, he didn’t take a shift after that.
Norris was acquired by Buffalo in one of the bigger trades near the trade deadline last season, coming over from Ottawa with Dylan Cozens being the most significant piece going the other way in a swap of centers that might benefit from the change of scenery. However, Norris wasn’t able to get a chance to prove that as he suffered a season-ending mid-body injury in just his third game with the team. Now, he’s suffered another serious setback in his fourth game more than six months later.
Norris was coming off a 21-goal season in 2024-25, the second-best output of his career only coming behind the 35 tallies he had in 2021-22 with Ottawa. The hope was that he’d be able to bring some extra firepower to their top six forward group and while that still could be the case, it clearly won’t be happening anytime soon. Fortunately, Ruff later clarified to reporters, including WGR 550’s Paul Hamilton (Twitter link), that the injury isn’t related to any injuries he has had in the past.
If it’s determined that Norris will miss at least 10 games and 24 days with this latest injury, he will become LTIR-eligible. However, with Buffalo having a little more than $2.2MM in cap space, per PuckPedia, they’re not necessarily in a spot where they should need to use that. In the meantime, it’s likely that the Sabres will place him on regular injured reserve in the near future, opening up a roster spot for a recall from AHL Rochester.
Gotta imagine the Sens FO is still giddy they pulled this steal off. Hey Sabres, why have Dylan Cozens when you an NOT have Josh Norris!
Punching down on a franchise below rock bottom. Feel good?
I’m pretty sure referring to making fun of the Sabres as ‘punching down’ is way more insulting than whatever the original joke was. This is an NHL franchise with fans and (some) good players and everything. You can make fun of them for bad decisions. It’s okay.
Flyers fans have to take their wins where they can get them.
Cozens and his offense at the time was not there.
This guy talks a lot of trash considering his team, the Flyers, are perpetually trash.
For what it’s worth DarkSide doesn’t hold back when it comes to the Flyers front office decisions either so he’s equal opportunity in his criticism.
I was confused when Kevyn Adams got the job.
I am baffled that he has kept the job.
It was very well known long before Adams traded for him that Josh Norris is made of balsa wood.
He’s friends with the owner
Norris is skilled, but brittle as a butterfinger candy bar.
Shame you can’t return broken glass.
Kevyn Adams knew about Norris’s injury history before the trade with Ottawa, But, clearly Kevyn Adams is smarter than everyone else. Another self inflicted blow to the Buffalo Sabres.
Guarantees in life death, taxes, and Norris at least missing a long amount of time due to injuries.
This is a cut and paste headline. Hold into it for later too
This trade couldn’t get any worse, then it did…
Buffalo fan for 12y. RIP, once again. Poor managemement, poot coaching. two-three good (not elite) players.
Few teams have more than 1 elite players at any given time. Buffalo may lack a truly elite player, they have at least 4 VERY GOOD players who you could consider borderline elite in Tage, Tuch, Power, and Dahlin. Their front office and coaching i would not dispute tho.