At least Lindy got something in the line of recognition: the Jack Adams Award for being the NHL’s Coach of the year. Certainly, he deserves it. There were a significant amount of top-line players out for long stretches of the season, and still, he figured out ways to get the Sabres to win. There was the problem with the tumor in his daughter’s brain. There were the two stretches, in October and after the Olympic break, where they lost most of their games. There were more injuries in the playoffs, but they kept advancing, missing the finals by a mere 20 minutes.

Still, winning Coach of the Year when you could have The Cup is like winning Miss Congeniality at a beauty pageant. It’s nice, but it isn’t what you really wanted to get. Buffalo would have been a better place to have it than Carolina, anyway. The finals would have been sold out before the series even started. We wouldn’t have broken the Cup, like they did in Carolina. And we certainly would have had more than 30,000 people at a victory parade.

I’m glad Lindy won, though. Congratulations, and hats off to you. May you have at least as good a team next year as you had this year.