Jeff Skinner was the toast of the town during the 2018-2019 season after being acquired from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for a second-round draft pick, a third-round draft pick, a sixth-round draft pick and prospect Cliff Pu. The Sabres would rattle off 10 wins in a row, while Jeff Skinner would score 40 goals during his first season with his new team. The unfortunate thing from the Sabres perspective is that he did so in a contract year, and as a result, he was able to extract an 8-year, $72m contract from the team before hitting free agency that summer.
Another thing happened along the way, too: the Sabres fired head coach Phil Housley.
Housley mostly played Skinner with Jack Eichel during his first year in Buffalo in an effort to load up the top line with as much talent as possible. For Skinner, this situation worked out very nicely as he had a career year in terms of scoring goals. Once Ralph Krueger took over though, Jeff Skinner was no longer a fixture on the top line with Eichel but would instead be played with Marcus Johansson and Vladimir Sobotka. That started a long decline for Skinner who found himself in coach Krueger’s doghouse often throughout the season-and-a-half that Krueger spent as head coach. Naturally, Krueger often denied that there was any disconnect between himself and Skinner.
“I don't have a doghouse,” Krueger famously said. “I don't really know what that is.”
Right.
Needless to say, the relationship never really got any better and Skinner found himself scratched during the 2020-2021 season prior to Krueger’s dismissal. Skinner had an unbelievably abysmal TWO points in the 24 games that Krueger coached him in this past season which is, frankly, somewhat unbelievable. Things improved a little bit in a small sample size under Granato, as Skinner managed 12 points in 39 games, which is still not good, but it’s not two points in 24 games, either.
When a team has a $9m player who isn’t working out as planned, the answer is not to bury him on the fourth line as some kind of punishment or retribution for not producing at a level commensurate with his pay. The Sabres have an obligation to themselves to try to salvage as much value out of Jeff Skinner as they possibly can in order to make his contract look a little better and they’ll have an opportunity to do that in a more offensively inclined system run by Don Granato. Let’s be absolutely clear: Jeff Skinner is overpaid and is always going to be overpaid during the duration of the contract. There’s debating that and there’s really no point dwelling on that.
There is some good news though. I don’t think Jeff Skinner is washed up or has had his abilities severely diminished as a 29-year-old. He is one of the absolute best skaters in the NHL with some of the finest edgework you’re likely to see while watching the game and he has yet to show that his skating is declining. It’s well-known that Skinner is a former figure skater, and he demonstrates his fancy footwork best in the offensive zone when he’s hunting for loose pucks around the net. There are no indications that he’s losing that particular part of his game yet. One of Skinner’s most unique moves is when he turns both of his skates outward almost to the point where his feet are facing 90˚ away from his body which allows him to effortlessly glide around the goalmouth on wraparounds. It’s an absolutely gorgeous move which Skinner deploys with precision.
His goal-scoring ability is obviously his calling card, and he generally accomplishes his highest goal totals when he’s taking a lot of shots because he’s a volume shooter. His nature as a volume shooter is also the reason why deploying him in a 3rd or 4th line role as Krueger did is problematic: Skinner needs opportunity and quality minutes to generate shots, chances and goals. He is simply not going to produce with bottom-6 grinders where he might only get a few shots a night; Skinner needs to be in a position to take a lot of shots and get into the game. He needs to be in the top-6.
The Toronto native also has a feisty spirit that can go underappreciated on a team that really doesn’t have many antagonistic personalities or fiery temperaments. Skinner loves mixing it up with the opposition and getting in their faces when at any opportunity. If I’m making a bold prediction about this season, I see a situation where Skinner starts running his mouth to a player on another team and then Dylan Cozens jumps into to start a fight.
In summary, if the Sabres want to get the best out of Skinner, they need to play him with a pass-first, skilled centerman and play him for a lot of even-strength minutes where he can utilize his volume shooting approach to create chances and goals. Don’t bury him on the 4th line because he makes too much money. That’s a sure-fire way to make sure he does nothing this season.
Here's the depth chart thus far:
Jeff Skinner – X –
Victor Olofsson
Anders Bjork – X –
Tage Thompson
Arttu Ruotsalainen -
Rasmus Asplund -
Vinnie Hinostroza
Zemgus Girgensons -
John Hayden -
Kyle Okposo
Cody Eakin
X – X
Will Butcher –
Mark Pysyk
Mattias Samuelsson -
Colin Miller
Craig Anderson
Dustin Tokarski
***************
The Sabres inked Casey Mittelstadt to a 3 year, $2.5m per season contract, and then copy and pasted the terms over to Henri Jokiharju’s agent and got the same deal done for him.
The Sabres got a fair deal done with both, but I can’t help but feel that they should have gone longer term with Mittelstadt. The American-born center was on a 63-point pace with Don Granato over the last 22 games of the season and there’s no reason to believe he’ll slow down this year. Mittelstadt is likely to receive top-6 minutes, offensive-zone deployment and powerplay time on a team that lacks many better options. It is very conceivable that Mittelstadt will eclipse the 60-point mark this season – and perhaps the next two – after which he will be due for a healthy raise.
I personally would have liked to see the Sabres sign Mittelstadt to something similar to the 6 year, $4.3m per contract that Flyers center Sean Couturier is currently finishing this season before his new deal kicks in next year. It appears likely that Mittelstadt will be due for something higher than $4.3m per season following this 3-year deal if he continues on his development pace. The Sabres certainly have the cap space to accommodate such a deal, and they’ve long been too hesitant to take chances on creating value contracts. Is it possible such a deal would backfire? Sure. There’s also the possibility that it would look like a steal in years 4, 5, and 6.
The Jokiharju deal makes a lot of sense. He currently projects as a steady second pairing defenseman but I’d want to see more before committing to anything either way. Overall, the deals are fine and they’ll both still be RFAs after the contracts end so it’s hard to fault the Sabres for the bridge-deal mentality.
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