Josh Norris showed promise with the Ottawa Senators when he made the 2021 All-Rookie Team and then scored 35 goals in the 2021-22 season. Then, injuries became an issue for Norris over the next three seasons.
By 2025, three years into his eight-year contract, the Senators traded away Norris to the Buffalo Sabres this past March. Dylan Cozens turned into a quality player for the Senators after being acquired in the trade.
The 2025-26 regular season is just over one month away. While the Senators are eager to be a consistent playoff team after making it in 2025 to end an eight-year drought, the Sabres are desperately looking to make the playoffs for the first time since 2011. However, one question the Sabres will know about Norris is one the Senators already know well ahead of the new season.
Sabres now have burning question about Norris' health for 2025-26 season
Yesterday, Rory Boylen of Sportsnet wrote an article titled "Buffalo Sabres Team Preview: Can they break the rebuild curse?" Boylen wrote three burning questions for the Sabres' 2025-26 season. The number one burning question Boylen wrote surrounding the Sabres involved Norris.
"Can Josh Norris stay healthy and be a reliable no. 1 centre" was the burning question from Boylen.
Norris' injury history is something the Senators know incredibly well. Although Norris has shown he has potential at signs of being a top center on the depth chart, injuries have held him back throughout his career. It all started in the following season after Norris scored a career-high 35 goals.
In the 2022-23 season, Norris missed 74 games. In the 2023-24 season, Norris missed 32 games. Last season before being traded by the Senators, he had missed eight games. Combined in his final three seasons as a Senator, Norris missed 114 games.
After being acquired by the Sabres, the injury issues continued. Norris missed the Sabres' final 18 games of the season due to a torn oblique. Norris recorded two points in three games with the Sabres before missing the rest of the season.
Buffalo is going to need Norris big this upcoming season. After the Sabres traded away JJ Peterka to the Utah Mammoth this off-season, the team will need to find goal scoring quickly. That is where Norris can show his goal scoring abilities as he's done in his career. Of Norris' 158 career points, 91 of them are goals.
Along with needing to be healthy, there could be an issue Buffalo will face with the 26-year-old. For a player who has had an injury history, Norris is the highest paid forward on the Sabres roster at $7.95 million per year, even ahead of Sabres star forward Tage Thompson. Norris' contract runs out after the 2029-30 season.
Norris will have a chance to prove the Senators wrong for trading him away in Buffalo. However, the injury history is a risk the Sabres now have with Norris on the roster.