Commentary
Connolly injury forces Sabres into tough decision
MATT KRUEGER Sports Reporter
Tim Connolly's hip surgery will give Sabres Vice President Larry Quinn and General Manager Darcy Regier plenty to think about this offseason.

When the announcement came down last Friday that the oft-injured forward would miss the rest of the season, it threw a wrench into the plans to negotiate a contract. Connolly will be an unrestricted free agent after next season, so the Sabres would like to start talking to him soon after the July 1 opening of free agency. But now, any talks will get pushed back a couple months to see how Connolly heals.

And the question facing the team now is should they re-sign him or trade him?

Connolly is clearly an amazing player, one capable of becoming one of the best in the NHL. His talent demands a raise from the $3.5 million he's making this year. But a myriad of injuries, including a bad concussion that kept him off the ice for more than a year, has slowed the center over the past three seasons. He has played 137 games since the lockout of 2004-05, including 24 playoff games. He missed all but two games of the 2006-07 season with post-concussion symptoms from a concussion suffered in the previous year's playoffs.

"It's extremely frustrating," Connolly said after the team's 4-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs Friday. "It's something that I couldn't avoid. I had to get it done. I'm to the point where I can no longer go out and perform. It has to be taken care of."

Connolly is the fifth-highest paid player on the Sabres roster this year and ranks sixth on the team in points (40). He has 33 assists, but just seven goals and has the lowest shooting percentage (6.3) of all the forwards except enforcer Andrew Peters. Connolly is a plus-four for the season and has three game-winning goals.

Toward the end of the season, Connolly wasn't allowed to play games on consecutive days, because the pain was too much. As the pain in his hip worsened, so did his production on the ice. In his last four games, Connolly had zero goals and zero assists. That followed up a hot streak, in which Connolly scored two goals and seven assists in five games.

"He really hung in there for as long as he could," Regier said. "Really, it was about his ability to maintain a high level of pain threshold, as well as recover during the off days. I think it was a combination of the time it took to recover, his inability to practice in between and a rising level of pain."

Connolly is one of 11 players scheduled to become free agents after next season, including goalie Ryan Miller, who will command a lot of money. Signing Connolly could hurt the Sabres' chances at signing Miller and others. A poll on the fan site www.letsgosabres.com asks if the Sabres should let go of Connolly or keep him. As of Tuesday morning, 62 percent of the 4,550 voters said the team should let him go.

I asked Connolly if his string of injuries has ever made him consider retirement, not because I think he should, but to see how he would respond. He obviously took offense to the "stupid" question, as he quickly shot back "are you serious?"

That showed me he has the passion to rebound from this latest setback. But the million-dollar question is, can the rest of his body keep up with his heart?