Sabres HC Lindy Ruff blasts officiating after hand-pass call during Oilers game

The Buffalo Sabres may have escaped Rogers Place with a 4-3 overtime win, but head coach Lindy Ruff left Edmonton frustrated with the officiating. Speaking after the game, Ruff said he was proud of his team’s battle level yet stunned by several calls he felt nearly cost Buffalo a much-needed result.

Ruff first pointed to the no-icing call that led directly to Connor McDavid’s early third-period goal. Mattias Ekholm dumped the puck in from well behind center, and Ruff could not understand how the linesmen kept their whistles down.

"When a guy's 5 feet from center ice and we don't get an icing call," Ruff said. "There's no reason. I mean, it's not even close. It's just icing, and you got to call it. And it gave them life."

"But there's no way you can miss. I understand if the guy's a foot from center ice. He's 5 feet from center ice. He dumps it in. It's an icing call. We're getting first touch. How they miss that call."

McDavid scored ten seconds later, sparking Edmonton’s comeback.

Ruff then pushed back on the hand-pass ruling that erased a would-be goal for Buffalo earlier in the game.

"I thought the glove pass, I don't know where that came from either," Ruff said. "I don't think anybody in the league knows anymore where it comes from."

The Sabres coach said he watches every hand-pass review around the league and argued that Alex Tuch had both hands on his stick.

"There's no explanation," Ruff said. "I watch every hand pass from the Marchand one to the ones that are called a hand pass. There's two hands on his stick. I don't even think he sees the puck. There's no hand off the stick.

"I don't know how they come up with hand pass. That boggles me. Somebody has to explain it to me how that one is. And the one in Florida I watched isn't. No explanation."

Ruff also complained about McDavid’s tying goal with 1.9 seconds left. Ruff wanted a league-initiated review for goalie interference involving Leon Draisaitl’s net-front battle with Alex Lyon.

"I want to know why they didn't review with one second left, goalie interference," Ruff said. "That's a league review. Why didn't they review it? Was the guy not on the edge of the crease? Not a good night."

Despite the frustration, Ruff praised his players for fighting through a chaotic finish. It ended a three-game skid on Tuch’s overtime winner.

Sabres' Josh Norris was sidelined due to illness

Lindy Ruff also addressed the absence of Sabres forward Josh Norris, who missed the game due to illness and soreness. The coach said Norris did not feel well before warm-up, forcing the team to pull him.

"We had a report he wasn't feeling well, and then in warm-up he tweaked something, and that was the point we had to take him out of the game," Ruff said.

Norris remains day-to-day, and his status for Thursday in Vancouver is uncertain. The 26-year-old’s injury history adds concern, leaving the Sabres cautious as they continue a long road trip.