u/Independent-Major559

This may be too ‘tinfoil hat’ for some people, there are a lot of pre-existing theories/reasons as to why we performed so much better this year.

Adams and Ruff had expressed disappointment with the team’s strength and conditioning at the end of last season, and made (at minimum), the change of firing Ed Gannon (an Australian man (?), had lead that department since 2015) and bringing in the renowned Brian Galivan, who had been working with the US men’s NTDP.

This team, for a number of years, always seemed like it had been a step behind physically irregardless of what personnel was in the lineup. There was also that recurring phenomenon of skating and battling competitively for maybe the first month (or less) of the season and then looking increasingly dead in the water as you got closer to the midpoint of the calendar and beyond.

My ’posterchild’ for this theory is Mattias Samuelsson. In hindsight, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more relatively out-of-shape Sabre in my life time. After his first couple of years, whenever the camera followed him around between whistles, this dude was always open mouthed and panting. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone thought much of it because that was much closer to the norm for conditioning in this franchise at the time. Now, he looks thinner, he was healthy this year, and he’s exceeded the form he had when he first came into the league and impressed.

Beyond that, I think you can just look at every guy who was retained on this roster from last season and do a direct comparison. Individually, they all skated and battled better than they did last year (even Malenstyn, the one guy who’s effort I could absolutely never doubt last season, looked quicker this year). As a result of that, this team didn’t just manage to keep up with opposing teams across a WHOLE season (which would’ve been a huge increase in standard itself), but collectively outskated it’s opposition most nights.

So, in synopsis, props to Brian Galivan, his people, and the guys (Ruff and Adams) who noticed that a change needed to be made there and got it done. That made a huge difference and raised this team’s floor significantly, in my opinion. Shoutout to the players for buying into it, as well

Background: I’ve been feeling like crap, to the point where my life has been halted, for about 5 years now. During this time, I’ve seen a number of specialists and had a lot of tests run on me. In summer of 2023, I had my cortisol tested by an endocrinologst and it was ever so slightly elevated at 25.6 ug/dL. Obviously, nothing came of that.

Some of my symptoms have gotten worse this year. So, a little over a month ago, a doctor has my morning cortisol run again (at about 7:20 a.m.). It comes back at 3.6 ug/dL, which has prompted a stim test to be ordered. I’ll have it done in a couple of weeks. Thing is, I would love to finally have a diagnosis, but I am also logistically doubtful and am worried I am going to be let down (again).

First piece of evidence against Addison’s would be my prior reading. The second piece of evidence against would be my terribly skewed sleep schedule; I’ve had a difficult relationship with sleep over the last several years, culminating in some poor sleeping habits. This time around, my schedule had shifted so that my bedtime would unfortunately be around 6 a.m.. I know that cortisol levels correlate with one’s circadian rhythm. Even if I got maybe 2 hours of sleep (and attempted more, tried to go to bed at 2 a.m.) before I got that AM cortisol reading, 6-7 a.m. was my body’s adjusted bed time, shouldn’t it be that low at 7:20 a.m. for me?

All this being said, I think there’s potential that I am seriously let down in a couple weeks time. What do you think? Am I set for more time without an answer for my symptoms?

Not many people in my life are big hockey/sabres fans (they‘re more Bills oriented), and I’m full mast after yesterdays win so I’ve just gotta dump my thoughts somewhere.

This team has been getting shelled and playing frustration driven, error prone hockey for the better part of the last 3 games (games 2, 3, and 4), but they pulled their act together and played their most poised, emotionally balanced period in quite some time in the third, and this is WHILE dealing with those refereeing controversies and that insane crowd that was practically willing the Habs to victory. They got the PP goal and then pulled off the win with one of the gutsiest Sabres defensive performances I think I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how many shots they blocked, but it was fucking awesome. That’s what real teams are made of right there.

and I know I’m giving a lot of credit to the team as a whole here in the third, because winning hockey games does take a village, but yes, UPL totally stole that game. I will forever be a bit skeptical of UPL with his inconsistencies, but I am always open to and absolutely love to be proven wrong (in a good way) by a Sabre. Hopefully the team has checked themselves mentally, they quit chasing and taking stupid penalties, this series ends favorably for us, and this can become a ‘remember when UPL stole game 4 in the Bell Centre,” kinda thing. Or it already is. But it’d be nice if they could REALLY make it count.

Cherry on top, I’ve really come to dislike that Montreal team over the last 3-4 seasons (in all fairness, when it comes to hockey, this means they’re doing the right things when it comes to roster construction, it’s a good team). This series is only cementing that feeling. There’s a lot of satisfaction in beating them when the stakes are high.