Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

Skinn In The Game

October 13, 2018, 1:47 PM ET [2 Comments]
GARTH'S CORNER
NHL news by Garth • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Updated:


Linus Ullmark will get the start tonight against the Desert Dogs.


Vlad Sobotka will return to the lineup after a three game absence.


Remi Elie and Johan Larsson will be the scratches forwards.






**


He’s getting top six playing time and is averaging 16:35 TOI, 24 shifts per game. He has 8 shots on goal in four games played. He started the season on Jack Eichel’s left wing, however, has since been moved to the second line. He is an 80% face off man. He has 3 takeaways and 3 giveaways. He has 2 blocked shots He’s getting second unit power play time. The puck continues to find him in scoring areas.

So, then, if Jeff Skinner was acquired over the summer to score goals and create offense, why does the former 30-goal scorer have everything bagels in the “Goals” and “Assists” on the score sheet after four games?

Sabres head coach Phil Housley was asked about Skinner after Friday’s practice.
“He can create things, he’s a proven goal scorer,” Housley said.

“He’s doing the little things as well.”




We know, coach.

Skinner isn’t a babe in the woods.

He’s a 26 year-old sniper who in 583 career NHL regular season games has scored 204 goals and 175 assists for 379 points. Sick production for a slick scorer with water-bug speed who creates his own offense.

Skinner has never played with a generational centerman like Jack Eichel during his eight seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Skinner + Eichel + Reinhart was supposed to equal immediate offensive blitzkrieg.
It hasn’t happened yet in the nine days of the NHL season.

“I really like the way he’s working, his forechecking,” Housley added. “He steals pucks, he strips pucks. (I like) the way he’s coming back into our zone. There’s just nothing evolving from that point.”

When Housley moved Skinner to the second unit, there was no spark between he, veterans Patrik Berglund and Kyle Okposo.

Tonight, the Sabres play Game 5 of the new season against the Arizona Desert Dogs. It’s the first of five games against Western Conference foes. The Sabres went 2-2 on their four game homestand to start the new season. The Sabres know there will be no free lunches when they travel to travel to Arizona, Las Vegas, San Jose, LA, and Anaheim. Housley and his boys want to grab all ten points in regulation that are available to them on their first roadie of the season. Playoff teams score at even strength and on the power play on the road. The Sabres aspire to be a playoff team at the end of teh 2018-19 season.

Housley has to create more even strength goal scoring. The Sabres will be a harder team to play against once they start getting scoring from all four forward lines. Skinner will skate with his third centerman in the grotesquely skilled rookie Casey Mittelstadt and Kyle Okposo.

Skinner always has a smile on his face because he doesn't sweat the small stuff. He's confident in his abilities to score and create offense for his line mates. There is pressure on Skinner to get his offensive game kick started because he is in a contract year. Skinner is earning $5.725M AAV this season and will be UFA on July 1, 2018. Another 30-goal season can open the door to a six or seven year contract extension in the $6.5M to $7M AAV.

Skinner has scored 2 goals and 3 assists in his last five games against the Coyotes.

Housley is playing knows that once Skinner starts scoring he will ignite more even strength scoring among the Sabres forward ranks. Last season, Skinner scored 25 goals and 24 assists in 82 games played, of which 20 goals and 20 assists were at even strength.

Housley is not fretting about Skinner’s slow start to the season.

He knows he has the horses to compete with the best teams in the NHL. The Sabres enter Saturday night’s game averaging 27.3 shots on goal per game (27th) while allowing 34.3 shots on goal against per game (23rd).

The Sabres offense has scored just 8 goals in their first four games. Jack Eichel and Conor Sheary have combined for 5 goals scored while 2 goals have been scored by defensemen Marco Scandella and Nathan Beaulieu. Fourth line winger Jason Pominville has the other marker for the Sabres.

It’s time for Housley to rub hockey sticks together to make fire.

“I’m just trying to create some chemistry,” Housley said. “He’s been held off the board as far as goals go, so I’m trying to get him going. I just think (Skinner and Mittelstadt) think the game alike.”

Like Skinner, Mittelstadt has started the season slowly. Mittelstadt has been the third line center and has one assist in four games played. Mittelstadt, and explosive offensive player, has been paying the majority of his attention to playing on the defensive side of the puck.

Mittelstadt was the 8th overall pick at the 2017 NHL Draft. In 10 NHL games played, the former University of Minnesota Golden Gopher star has scored 6 points. Mittelstadt has 12 shots on goal and is averaging 12:20 TOI in four games played.

Housley is confident that Skinner-Mittelstadt-Okposo can ignite offensive dynamite, both at even strength and on the power play.

By elevating Mittelstadt to 2C, Berglund will slide down to 3C for a reunion with his former St. Louis Blues teammates Tage Thompson and Vlad Sobotka, who has missed the past three games with an upper body injury.

I’ll say it now:

The Skinner-Mittelstadt-Okposo will combine for two goals on Saturday night.

Buffalo is 12-3-1 in its last 16 games against Arizona, including a 7-2-1 record since the beginning of the 2013-14 season.

The Sabres are 9-2-0 on the road against the Coyotes since the beginning of the 2001-02 season and 10-5-0 in 15 road games against the Coyotes since they relocated from Winnipeg prior to the 1996-97 season.

The Sabres didn’t have a pregame skate on Saturday morning. Phil Houlsey will meet with media before the game.

Here are the forward lines from Friday’s pr
actice:




The D duos:
Scandella-Ristolainen
McCabe-Dahlin
Beaulieu-Bogosian
Extras: Nelson, Tennyson

Defenseman Zach Bogosian is expected to make his season debut tonight after missing the first four games of the season with a lower body ailment that the big D-man suffered in Buffalo’s preseason game at Clinton, NY on September 26. Right shot D Casey Nelson will likely sit to make room for Bogosian, whose physicality will be a deterrent against high risk scoring opportunities by the Desert Dogs.
Linus Ullmark is expected to get his first start of the season against the Coyotes.





**

Congratulations are in order for Sabres forward Jason Pominville, who will be playing in 665th regular-season game as a member of the Sabres. Pominville will be passing Mike Foligno and Ric Seiling for sole possession of 10th-most games in franchise history.
After tonight, Pominville will be just 16 games behind Rick Martin (681) for ninth and 47 games behind Alexei Zhitnik (712) for eighth.


Pominville is the first player to break into the franchise’s top 10 in games played since Zhitnik passed Foligno, Seiling and Martin to move into eighth during the 2003-04 season.




**


Join the Discussion: » 2 Comments » Post New Comment
More from GARTH'S CORNER
» Hailing Taxis
» He With The Gold Makes The Rules
» Sedentary Seven
» The Sedentary Seven
» GadZuccs