When Lindy Ruff was fired by the Buffalo Sabres earlier this season, terminating his remarkable run as the NHL’s longest-tenured bench boss, he waited only until his first press conference to let the hockey world know he wanted back in.
“I miss it already,” the 53-year-old told reporters on a cold February Friday in Buffalo.
Having been named head coach of Canada’s 2013 world championships team Wednesday, Ruff again expressed his desire to secure another NHL job when he appeared on Hockey Central @ Noon Thursday.
Ruff coached Canada to a silver medal at the 2009 world championships. He also served as an associate coach for Mike Babock on Canada’s 2010 gold-medal Olympic team. The 2013 world championships take place May 3-19 in Stockholm and Helsinki.
Team Canada, Ruff hopes, is just the beginning of his second act.
“This is a prelude to getting back in it. Obviously, you’re hoping to get back in it. You need a little time to decompress, sit back,” Ruff told Hockey Central. “I’ve gone through being angry, the anxiety of watching a lot of hockey.
“I’ve spent some time with the family, which has been nice, but I’m anxious to get back at it.”
Most see the proven Ruff as an easy choice to guide Team Canada this spring, but that doesn’t mean the Alberta native is assuming he’ll be back behind an NHL bench come October.
“I don’t expect to be. I hope to have that opportunity, and that’s the way I approach it,” Ruff said.
Ruff said that no NHL team has called him to discuss about a coaching position since he was fired by the Sabres two months ago.
When Tampa Bay Lightning GM Steve Yzerman — also the Hockey Canada executive who just tapped Ruff to lead his nation’s international squad the the worlds — decided to replace fired Bolts coach Guy Boucher with the AHL’s Jon Cooper, he called Ruff out of respect.
“I had made my mind up when I decided to make the coaching change… that we were going with Jon Cooper,” Yzerman told Tampa reporters at the time. “I thought it was important out of respect to Lindy that I had made my decision previous to letting Guy go that was the direction I was going.”
Just because Ruff wore out his welcome on a then-13th-place Sabres squad doesn’t mean he won’t be coveted elsewhere. Deep resumes, years of player respect and more than 100 games of playoff coaching experience (with a career .564 winning percentage) are not easy to come by.
“He’s a top free agent out there right now,” Sabres sniper Thomas Vanek told sportsnet.ca back in February, “and any organization that’s going to get him is going to get a great coach.”
