Dreakon wrote:
Bonus respect for Rivet and Vanek. Both playing with injury and Vanek at least coming up huge in the few games he played. A lot of heart in those two guys. Hopefully Rivet gets that surgery ASAP so he can be spunky and ready to play at 100% come October.
Minus respect for Connolly. I'm hoping he gets traded because I think he's had a terrible attitude ever since I heard rumor of him being the "first off the ice" type at practices and refused to really put any effort into practicing faceoff's. Plus the horrid playoff performance. Of course, everything other than the playoff performance is rumor and hear-say... but eh, the playoff performance alone probably warrants a trade.

There some contradiction in this thought, and you're certainly not the only one posting it.
We were all down on Rivet's play this season, with some calling him useless or wanting him benched with all kinds of harsh words. I never got specific, but I said his shoulder was a major problem and that's why he's played so less physically than normal. Since his injury happened two months into his contract with Buffalo, we hardly saw him at full strength, but we all remember that Islanders game and a few others at that time when he was a monster. Injuries make a difference.
Vanek, as we all know, suffered various injuries all season, but was finally healthy during the end of the reg season and he was a monster. Connolly missed three weeks of skating and was clearly well under 100%. Switch Vanek and Connolly and everyone would be shouting to trade Vanek. One was healthy (got hacked down and did his best to return) while the other was definitely not. When Connolly was healthy he had great stretches of production during the reg season. If it wasn't the playoffs he would have missed another week just to practice and get in game shape. He didn't have that chance because we were already hurting with Hecht and Stafford out.
If Connolly has some other attitude issue going on then fine, work out a trade that can help. But trading him just because he didn't produce coming off three weeks of not skating is kind of dumb. No other player would play well in that scenario. It's not a coincidence that players produce when they are healthy, and falter when they are playing through injuries.