Tim Connolly: how good was this guy?

[Pimlach]

Very talented player. Career was limited by injuries.  
 

Today he would be the 2C we are desperately in need off. 

[woods-racer]

5 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

Very talented player. Career was limited by injuries.  
 

Today he would be the 2C we are desperately in need off. 

He would be our 2 C in every decade the Sabres have been in existence.

[Weave]

1 hour ago, woods-racer said:

He would be our 2 C in every decade the Sabres have been in existence.

LaFontaine-Hawerchuck might argue.

Otherwise, yes.

[dudacek]

Timmy tends to be the forgotten man of that team; attention is generally focused on the co-captains and the Rochester kids,

But the sheer skill he and Max provided - it’s hard to think of another team that had that much talent that far down the pecking order. Has there ever been a non-cup winner that had that much depth up front?

 

[#freejame]

31 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Timmy tends to be the forgotten man of that team; attention is generally focused on the co-captains and the Rochester kids,

But the sheer skill he and Max provided - it’s hard to think of another team that had that much talent that far down the pecking order. Has there ever been a non-cup winner that had that much depth up front?

 

Pretty sure we set the record for most 20 goal scorers and most 10+ goal scorers. ***

Edited March 12, 2020 by #freejame
This is not true.

[Mustache of God]

Man, watching those videos brings me back. This team needs to figure its ***** out ASAP. 

[Marvin]

Connolly, and to a lesser extent Pyatt, got hatred because they were the return of the Peca trade.  The treatment of them by the local press - particularly Bucky and Sully for Connolly - was unconscionable.

WARNING: Very controversial opinion forthcoming.

I applaud the Pegulas for their treatment of the local press after they bought the team.  IMHO, these SOB's deliberately undermined the team for a decade after that trade and set the stage for the current toxicity because they did not want Connolly to be a part of it.  They brought up the co-captains unnecessarily to stoke the anti-Connolly hatred.  And it worked irredeemably well -- this board proved it in no-trumps for years.  And I do mean irredeemably.

I evaluate Connolly differently from others.  He was mediocre to terrible until he re-invented himself as a checker who could score.  Thank Lindy Ruff for that.  He could replace Briere or Drury for extended periods in *their* roles.  That is a truly rare ability.  I personally believe that if he is not injured, then we beat Carolina anyway even though we were down 4 defencemen in game 7.

He and Chris Gratton (!) are the perfect 3C's for any line-up, depending on how you want to structure your team.  When they went on the ice to protect a lead (along with combos like Drury-Grier-Pyatt), I used to just relax back in my seat because the lines Lindy made with them LOG-line quality forecheckers - the game was in the bag.

[nfreeman]

11 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

Peak Tim Connolly was among my top-10 favourite Sabres, ever. So, so fun to watch.

 

Mine too.

And that was a great article by Tim Graham.

[That Aud Smell]

10 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Mine too.

And that was a great article by Tim Graham.

hey, and shout out to @X. Benedict who educated me to the reality that, quite contrary to a narrative that emerged, Connolly was the direct opposite of "soft" -- dude was, in point of fact, quite fearless in terms of the positions in which he put himself on the ice.

[inkman]

13 hours ago, E4 ... Ke2 said:

Connolly, and to a lesser extent Pyatt, got hatred because they were the return of the Peca trade.  The treatment of them by the local press - particularly Bucky and Sully for Connolly - was unconscionable.

WARNING: Very controversial opinion forthcoming.

I applaud the Pegulas for their treatment of the local press after they bought the team.  IMHO, these SOB's deliberately undermined the team for a decade after that trade and set the stage for the current toxicity because they did not want Connolly to be a part of it.  They brought up the co-captains unnecessarily to stoke the anti-Connolly hatred.  And it worked irredeemably well -- this board proved it in no-trumps for years.  And I do mean irredeemably.

I evaluate Connolly differently from others.  He was mediocre to terrible until he re-invented himself as a checker who could score.  Thank Lindy Ruff for that.  He could replace Briere or Drury for extended periods in *their* roles.  That is a truly rare ability.  I personally believe that if he is not injured, then we beat Carolina anyway even though we were down 4 defencemen in game 7.

He and Chris Gratton (!) are the perfect 3C's for any line-up, depending on how you want to structure your team.  When they went on the ice to protect a lead (along with combos like Drury-Grier-Pyatt), I used to just relax back in my seat because the lines Lindy made with them LOG-line quality forecheckers - the game was in the bag.

Back to the ol "the media made this team play bad" schtick.  My problem with TC was that he couldn't stay healthy.  I'm not sure how much blame to lay at his feet but there was much discussion about TC and his parents relationship with Larry Quinn.  From what I've heard and read, Tim didn't do himself any favors with his off ice behavior.  So much so, it probably had a large effect on his career and his reputation among the media.  I don't need these guys to be choir boys, I'd actually prefer a few ingrates.  When your first instinct when you aren't playing is to get inebriated, you probably need to reevaluate your priorities.  

[shrader]

43 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

hey, and shout out to @X. Benedict who educated me to the reality that, quite contrary to a narrative that emerged, Connolly was the direct opposite of "soft" -- dude was, in point of fact, quite fearless in terms of the positions in which he put himself on the ice.

There's a fine line between fearless and reckless.

[Kruppstahl]

On occasion, Tim Connelly did stuff on the ice that very few--if anyone--has done before! 

The guy had "Oh my God, did you see what he just did?" moves in him somewhere.  They didn't always come out, but he definitely had a certain type of talent and it was huge. 

He did a bunch of stuff that Sam Reinhart, for example, simply cannot do.  And I point him out not because I think he is bad, but because he's a super talented hockey player in certain ways.  But he can't do that crazy stuff Connelly could do.

 

 

[Pimlach]

22 hours ago, woods-racer said:

He would be our 2 C in every decade the Sabres have been in existence.

hmmm ...  He was not the 2C in his own decade.  He was behind Briere and Drury.  He would have been behind LaFontaine and Hawerchuk.  
 

In the 70’s he would have been probably eventually beat Meehan for 2C, even though Luce played more minutes as the 3C. 
 

 

[Marvin]

7 hours ago, inkman said:

Back to the ol "the media made this team play bad" schtick.  My problem with TC was that he couldn't stay healthy.  I'm not sure how much blame to lay at his feet but there was much discussion about TC and his parents relationship with Larry Quinn.  From what I've heard and read, Tim didn't do himself any favors with his off ice behavior.  So much so, it probably had a large effect on his career and his reputation among the media.  I don't need these guys to be choir boys, I'd actually prefer a few ingrates.  When your first instinct when you aren't playing is to get inebriated, you probably need to reevaluate your priorities.  

TL; DR: Overall: No.  The media had a part in exacerbating every negative point about TC (and the Rochester core, for that matter) in Buffalo.  They did not create something that was not there.  (You know this is trouble when I need a TL;DR for all the TL;DRs that follow.)

I had season tix from 1999-2004 and partial seasons from 2005-2013.  Fans routinely parroted negative stories from The Snooze and BBSes; eventually, I could tell the source without reading them anymore.

Early on, Connolly's injuries bothered me a lot less than his horrendous play and party-going nature.  His drinking was an open secret downtown until his first bad concussion; I had always gathered that he cleaned up his act afterwards.  Having said that, he was often his own worst enemy off the ice (particularly from 2001-3) and on the ice (especially 2007-11).  After the Co-Captains left, the Rochester core got more blame and a lesser percentage fell on Connolly.

Even so, his injuries would have bothered me a lot less had the team added another 2-3C and viewed him as a great supplementary rather than as a core piece.  That would have mitigated the negative influence of his injuries while making his positive influence much more, well, positive.

TL;DR 1: Some of Connolly's problems were his fault, just as the Sabres failures after the Co-Captains before the tank belong with "The Failed Rochester Core."  But external factors don't help -- particularly dumb choices from management.  "Dumb Choices By Management" will be an ongoing theme.

I can't imagine anyone liked how Mike Peca was treated, let alone that he had to be traded.  Hence, TC and TP already had to do the impossible: they both had to be better than Peca, hit harder than Peca, fight more than Peca, and the Sabres had to win more than they had when Peca was on it - and had to make up for Dominik Hasek forcing his way out because of how Peca had been treated.   Every failure of the Sabres with Connolly and Pyatt matched every success of the Islanders with Peca, and the Snooze played it for all it was worth with the print version of "click bait".  And I'm not even counting that lingering feeling that, had Peca been on the team in 2000-1, the Sabres might have won the Cup and Hasek would not have left.  (I personally agree with this.)

The negative energy was there at the first preseason game and increased non-stop at Peca's Islanders kept burying the Sabres in the rear-view mirror.  Bucky and Sully wrote extensive polemics on how bad Connolly was when he was one of the Sabres' better players in 2001-2.  They gleefully savaged him in 2002-3, where he might have been the worst player on the team during the bankruptcy.  Missing the 2003-4 season might have been the best thing for him.  The fans and the Snooze treated them like it was their fault for the Sabres' problems.

TL; DR 2: Fans took out their frustrations with the 2001-4 Sabres on Connolly and, to a lesser extent, Pyatt -- whether they were deserved or not.  Their own shortcomings and characteristics as players and rumoured off-ice behaviour make the situation worse.

During the co-captains era, I did not get full seasons because I thought Connolly belonged nowhere near an NHL roster.  Early that season, I commented that I felt I should apologise to him because he was way better.  After the harangues I got from fans because he was "clearly a passenger for Drury and Briere" and various other things to denigrate his play and after being directly made fun of by a Snooze reporter on WGR a few games later, I almost gave up my 1/2 seasons for free.  Any credit he got was begrudging, and always downplayed because he wasn't really responsible for it for whatever reason.  (PHam, I am looking at you too.)

After the Co-captains left, Connolly and Roy now drew the ire of the fans that were more about Quinn and the rest of management.  Quinn made this worse by his relationship with Connolly's family and how he seemed to value Connolly over both co-captains combined.  The success of the Rangers and Flyers over the Sabres they left behind stuck in our craws even worse.  And the Snooze writers let us know it: they would gratuitously bring up the co-captains when there was nothing else negative that they could write.  Much of Sabres fandom had the same issues -- two sites closed down in this time; the reasons given by their hosts included Tim Connolly's presence over Drury and Briere.

To add insult to injury, fans knew that his concussion history severely limited his long-term prospects.  We knew that counting on him to be a consistent 2C was crazy because he seemed to be reckless with his own safety and seemed to try too hard to prove himself over the negativity that wafted through the crowd whenever he went on the ice.  (I couldn't miss it; I can't imagine he did.)  When he played, his play was typically of a high standard -- he defended like a top defencive centre while consistently scoring at a high pace.  It wasn't his fault that the higher-ups in the organisation were too stupid to rely on him in spite of his injury history -- and then they compounded the offence by elevating Gaustad to 3C and not drafting a C between Luke Adam and Mikhail Grigorenko.

And, on top of it, fans and the media started to vent about the "Rochester Core", who really started to take it on the chin as a group.  This was extraordinarily unfair to Vanek and Miller, very unfair to Pominville, and merely unfair to Roy, because these players often carried the team on their backs even through terrible injuries (especially Vanek in 2010 against Boston) and willed them towards playoff spots (Vanek, Pominville, and Miller in 2011) or through gross negligence by the GM (all 5, particularly Miller, for 2007-9 and 2011-2).

TL; DR 3: Fans took out their frustrations with the 2007-12 Sabres on Connolly, Roy, Vanek, Pominville, and Miller.  Connolly's injury history belay management's inertia to get another quality middle-6 C.  Their collective problems started with management screw-ups, but the Buffalo media pushed an unfair amount of blame onto them.

Surprise: IMHO, the Buffalo sports media never - and I mean never - artificially created negativity within the fan base; said negativity was already there and often for good reason.  However, they exacerbated it seemingly at every turn and had picked out Tim Connolly as their primary scapegoat.  When he was gone, it was "the failed Rochester Core."  Both of these are gross over-simplifications; e.g., who failed to deal with the lack of centres for that core?

[inkman]

3 hours ago, E4 ... Ke2 said:

TL; DR: Overall: No.  The media had a part in exacerbating every negative point about TC (and the Rochester core, for that matter) in Buffalo.  They did not create something that was not there.  (You know this is trouble when I need a TL;DR for all the TL;DRs that follow.)

I had season tix from 1999-2004 and partial seasons from 2005-2013.  Fans routinely parroted negative stories from The Snooze and BBSes; eventually, I could tell the source without reading them anymore.

Early on, Connolly's injuries bothered me a lot less than his horrendous play and party-going nature.  His drinking was an open secret downtown until his first bad concussion; I had always gathered that he cleaned up his act afterwards.  Having said that, he was often his own worst enemy off the ice (particularly from 2001-3) and on the ice (especially 2007-11).  After the Co-Captains left, the Rochester core got more blame and a lesser percentage fell on Connolly.

Even so, his injuries would have bothered me a lot less had the team added another 2-3C and viewed him as a great supplementary rather than as a core piece.  That would have mitigated the negative influence of his injuries while making his positive influence much more, well, positive.

TL;DR 1: Some of Connolly's problems were his fault, just as the Sabres failures after the Co-Captains before the tank belong with "The Failed Rochester Core."  But external factors don't help -- particularly dumb choices from management.  "Dumb Choices By Management" will be an ongoing theme.

I can't imagine anyone liked how Mike Peca was treated, let alone that he had to be traded.  Hence, TC and TP already had to do the impossible: they both had to be better than Peca, hit harder than Peca, fight more than Peca, and the Sabres had to win more than they had when Peca was on it - and had to make up for Dominik Hasek forcing his way out because of how Peca had been treated.   Every failure of the Sabres with Connolly and Pyatt matched every success of the Islanders with Peca, and the Snooze played it for all it was worth with the print version of "click bait".  And I'm not even counting that lingering feeling that, had Peca been on the team in 2000-1, the Sabres might have won the Cup and Hasek would not have left.  (I personally agree with this.)

The negative energy was there at the first preseason game and increased non-stop at Peca's Islanders kept burying the Sabres in the rear-view mirror.  Bucky and Sully wrote extensive polemics on how bad Connolly was when he was one of the Sabres' better players in 2001-2.  They gleefully savaged him in 2002-3, where he might have been the worst player on the team during the bankruptcy.  Missing the 2003-4 season might have been the best thing for him.  The fans and the Snooze treated them like it was their fault for the Sabres' problems.

TL; DR 2: Fans took out their frustrations with the 2001-4 Sabres on Connolly and, to a lesser extent, Pyatt -- whether they were deserved or not.  Their own shortcomings and characteristics as players and rumoured off-ice behaviour make the situation worse.

During the co-captains era, I did not get full seasons because I thought Connolly belonged nowhere near an NHL roster.  Early that season, I commented that I felt I should apologise to him because he was way better.  After the harangues I got from fans because he was "clearly a passenger for Drury and Briere" and various other things to denigrate his play and after being directly made fun of by a Snooze reporter on WGR a few games later, I almost gave up my 1/2 seasons for free.  Any credit he got was begrudging, and always downplayed because he wasn't really responsible for it for whatever reason.  (PHam, I am looking at you too.)

After the Co-captains left, Connolly and Roy now drew the ire of the fans that were more about Quinn and the rest of management.  Quinn made this worse by his relationship with Connolly's family and how he seemed to value Connolly over both co-captains combined.  The success of the Rangers and Flyers over the Sabres they left behind stuck in our craws even worse.  And the Snooze writers let us know it: they would gratuitously bring up the co-captains when there was nothing else negative that they could write.  Much of Sabres fandom had the same issues -- two sites closed down in this time; the reasons given by their hosts included Tim Connolly's presence over Drury and Briere.

To add insult to injury, fans knew that his concussion history severely limited his long-term prospects.  We knew that counting on him to be a consistent 2C was crazy because he seemed to be reckless with his own safety and seemed to try too hard to prove himself over the negativity that wafted through the crowd whenever he went on the ice.  (I couldn't miss it; I can't imagine he did.)  When he played, his play was typically of a high standard -- he defended like a top defencive centre while consistently scoring at a high pace.  It wasn't his fault that the higher-ups in the organisation were too stupid to rely on him in spite of his injury history -- and then they compounded the offence by elevating Gaustad to 3C and not drafting a C between Luke Adam and Mikhail Grigorenko.

And, on top of it, fans and the media started to vent about the "Rochester Core", who really started to take it on the chin as a group.  This was extraordinarily unfair to Vanek and Miller, very unfair to Pominville, and merely unfair to Roy, because these players often carried the team on their backs even through terrible injuries (especially Vanek in 2010 against Boston) and willed them towards playoff spots (Vanek, Pominville, and Miller in 2011) or through gross negligence by the GM (all 5, particularly Miller, for 2007-9 and 2011-2).

TL; DR 3: Fans took out their frustrations with the 2007-12 Sabres on Connolly, Roy, Vanek, Pominville, and Miller.  Connolly's injury history belay management's inertia to get another quality middle-6 C.  Their collective problems started with management screw-ups, but the Buffalo media pushed an unfair amount of blame onto them.

Surprise: IMHO, the Buffalo sports media never - and I mean never - artificially created negativity within the fan base; said negativity was already there and often for good reason.  However, they exacerbated it seemingly at every turn and had picked out Tim Connolly as their primary scapegoat.  When he was gone, it was "the failed Rochester Core."  Both of these are gross over-simplifications; e.g., who failed to deal with the lack of centres for that core?

I read the first 13 words of this.  Wow tho.  Really appreciate the depth of the response. I'm just too stupid and lazy to read it.  

[triumph_communes]

He is my favorite Sabre next to Peca in all time. 

[LTS]

5 hours ago, E4 ... Ke2 said:

TL; DR: Overall: No.  The media had a part in exacerbating every negative point about TC (and the Rochester core, for that matter) in Buffalo.  They did not create something that was not there.  (You know this is trouble when I need a TL;DR for all the TL;DRs that follow.)

.....

Surprise: IMHO, the Buffalo sports media never - and I mean never - artificially created negativity within the fan base; said negativity was already there and often for good reason.  However, they exacerbated it seemingly at every turn and had picked out Tim Connolly as their primary scapegoat.  When he was gone, it was "the failed Rochester Core."  Both of these are gross over-simplifications; e.g., who failed to deal with the lack of centres for that core?

I did read all of this. This is a great post. I'm not qualified to agree or not agree as I was very much not "in Buffalo" during this time, but these kinds of posts should be encouraged around here.

Well done.  I was always a fan of TC and felt horrible about his health issues.  At that time I was not really "in Rochester" either so for the most part I was between and while I was always a fan, I was not as clued in as I was earlier on and then later on.  

Love this post..

[Taro T]

Wonder if DeLuca ever made a donation to SDS of my winnings from our bet like I'd asked him to do.

Never got to a game with him, so he still owes me beers.  (Doubt I'll ever get to collect.)

[Hank]

What happened to Deluca? Was he banned? I remember liking him. And Drane. 

13 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Wonder if DeLuca ever made a donation to SDS of my winnings from our bet like I'd asked him to do.

Never got to a game with him, so he still owes me beers.  (Doubt I'll ever get to collect.)

 

[nfreeman]

I regret to report that to the best of my knowledge, @deluca67 kinda ghosted us.  I hope he’s well and he comes back soon once Gillis or Hextall puts things in order.  

[Sensanity]

Tim Connolly was an excellent player and a damn shame his career was cut short by injuries.  I can excuse fans here because you're fans but TC thinking the Sabres had any chance against the Sens that year or the Ducks just shows he's still suffering from post concussion syndrome.  If Ottawa had not stupidly let Hasek go that series probably would have been over in 4.