[Lysowski] Jeff Skinner said there were no lingering effects from the Nathan MacKinnon hit in December. Health wasn’t a factor in Skinner’s second half. Expressed excitement to get to work on fixing what went wrong in his game.
by PrinciplesRK
@Buffalo Sabres
8 Comments
“I wasn’t hurt, I just sucked”
Might get downvoted for this, but unless Skinner is scoring 2 points in a game, he is actively hurting the team. You spend most of the time without the puck on your stick and need to ensure responsible play away from the puck. So much more goes into winning than scoring goals.
I love Skinner as a person and his smile is infectious, but I’m just sick of seeing lazy defensive coverage and him hovering at our defensive blue line waiting for an easy breakout.
Skinner didn’t even crack my top 10 things I had marked for what was wrong with the season.
I accept him as he is who he is. He’s hot. He’s cold. He usually averages out.
Skinner thrives in a aggressive offense and transition game. The thing they were elite at last season.
This season they maybe played like 10-15 games where they looked like that. Skinner only really produces when his linemates are driving the play and Tuch and Thompson looked a bit lost on that all season.
A hatty with 14 games to go then finishes the final 13 games with 0 goals 1 assist. Don’t agree with Hamilton a lot but buying him out at 2.6AAV over the next 6 years is the best thing this franchise can do. We acquired him for a bag of pucks, he’s now grossly overpaid, and he just doesn’t look as engaged. Besides the “you have no teeth” Domi game he really had zero problems skating 15 minutes a night just collecting a paycheck. Kaprizov had as many goals as Skinner had points this year if you look at someone justified making 9 million a year. At age 32 you package a pick and his contract to Utah or just buy him out.
Skinner could have a rough go of it with a new veteran coach.
He struggles with posession/cycle offense, which is a huge negative for me. He takes way too many low quality shots, and if he’s not going, I basically don’t want him on the ice.
Buffalo retains 25%. Buffalo trades a second round pick to a third party broker in exchange for retaining 25%. Buffalo can now move Skinner at a cap hit of $4.5M. You add one more asset to that and you’ve got the makings of an appealing trade.
Yes, I know… NMC. But if this is the start of his decline rather than a blip this is the last year it would be possible to move him at any price. Otherwise, he’s due to get paid $9M through 2026-2027. Byram, Quinn, Peterka, and Greenway will all need extensions for 2025-2026.
Buyout or trade, now is the time to do it.
Who knows maybe skinner just needed a better coach