Buffalo Sabres center Josh Norris. Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images

Sabres center to miss 'significant amount of time' with another injury

Originally posted on Pro Hockey Rumors | By Brian La Rose | Last updated Oct 11, 2025 11:43 AM ET

On Friday, the Buffalo Sabres were still evaluating Josh Norris’ upper-body injury to determine how long he might be out for.

The evaluation appears to be done, and the outcome is not ideal. Head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters 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 New York Rangers off a faceoff. 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.

Update from #Sabres coach Lindy Ruff: C Josh Norris will miss a “significant amount of time” with an upper-body injury.
— Rachel Lenzi ‍♀️ (@rachelmlenzi) October 11, 2025

Josh Norris suffered a season-ending injury in 2024-25

Norris was acquired by Buffalo in one of the bigger deals near the trade deadline last season. He came 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.

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 $2.2M 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.

This article first appeared on Pro Hockey Rumors and was syndicated with permission.

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