Confirmed with Link: Skinner traded to Buffalo for 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and prospect

[WhiteTrashAmerican]

Had to go back and check my take...I'm in the clear!

 

[Identity404]

Seems like a lot of Sabres fans were trying to sell us on the fact that their Pu doesn't stink.

Pretty amazing that those 2 draft picks look like home runs thus far.

 

[Svechhammer]

Seems like a lot of Sabres fans were trying to sell us on the fact that their Pu doesn't stink.

Pretty amazing that those 2 draft picks look like home runs thus far.

I mean if Kooch and Nikishin pan out like they're currently expected, it might end up that the best 2 players in that entire trade were the draft picks.

 

[WreckingCrew]

So we traded Skins for Pu, #69 (nice), and Koochie...

 

[MinJaBen]

I was pretty sure we were going to be picking first in the following draft after this trade.







We were in the conference finals. So, pretty close.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I mean if Kooch and Nikishin pan out like they're currently expected, it might end up that the best 2 players in that entire trade were the draft picks.

And if Skinner continues his pace, he’ll score 45 goals this year to go with 40 and 33 since the trade.

I know we’re all high on Koochie supply right now, but this trade was ugly in the context in which it was made. A B prospect and a couple of low draft picks is a horrible return on a reliable 30-40 goal player. It’s the return you’d get if a TDL blew up in your face, but we made the deal in August. Rolling out Erik Cole at the draft party to character-assassinate Skinner to the fanbase was arguably the nadir of the organization’s Dark Times.

 

[Svechhammer]

And if Skinner continues his pace, he’ll score 45 goals this year to go with 40 and 33 since the trade.

I know we’re all high on Koochie supply right now, but this trade was ugly in the context in which it was made. A B prospect and a couple of low draft picks is a horrible return on a reliable 30-40 goal player. It’s the return you’d get if a TDL blew up in your face, but we made the deal in August. Rolling out Erik Cole at the draft party to character-assassinate Skinner to the fanbase was arguably the nadir of the organization’s Dark Times.

He's a one way player that has had chemistry issues every stage of his career that our coaching staff wanted off this team ASAP after they were hired and he's not yet played a single playoff game in his career.

Yeah he scores goals, but there are a lot of warts to his game that get glossed over often when he's discussed on here.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

And if Skinner continues his pace, he’ll score 45 goals this year to go with 40 and 33 since the trade.

I know we’re all high on Koochie supply right now, but this trade was ugly in the context in which it was made. A B prospect and a couple of low draft picks is a horrible return on a reliable 30-40 goal player. It’s the return you’d get if a TDL blew up in your face, but we made the deal in August. Rolling out Erik Cole at the draft party to character-assassinate Skinner to the fanbase was arguably the nadir of the organization’s Dark Times.

thank Jim Rutherford.

 

[cptjeff]

And if Skinner continues his pace, he’ll score 45 goals this year to go with 40 and 33 since the trade.

I know we’re all high on Koochie supply right now, but this trade was ugly in the context in which it was made. A B prospect and a couple of low draft picks is a horrible return on a reliable 30-40 goal player. It’s the return you’d get if a TDL blew up in your face, but we made the deal in August. Rolling out Erik Cole at the draft party to character-assassinate Skinner to the fanbase was arguably the nadir of the organization’s Dark Times.

Agreed. Koochie is great. But that was an interchangeable draft pick, and the trade as a whole is still an utter disgrace.

 

[Joe McGrath]

And if Skinner continues his pace, he’ll score 45 goals this year to go with 40 and 33 since the trade.

I know we’re all high on Koochie supply right now, but this trade was ugly in the context in which it was made. A B prospect and a couple of low draft picks is a horrible return on a reliable 30-40 goal player. It’s the return you’d get if a TDL blew up in your face, but we made the deal in August. Rolling out Erik Cole at the draft party to character-assassinate Skinner to the fanbase was arguably the nadir of the organization’s Dark Times.

You aren’t a reliable 30-40 goal scorer if you’ve played 12 years and never scored 30+ in back to back seasons.

 

[bleedgreen]

He's a one way player that has had chemistry issues every stage of his career that our coaching staff wanted off this team ASAP after they were hired and he's not yet played a single playoff game in his career.

Yeah he scores goals, but there are a lot of warts to his game that get glossed over often when he's discussed on here.

He was maybe our best goal scorer ever, and we struggled with offensive depth during most of his career.

No chemistry? Weak. He had chemistry with both Erik Cole and the Finns, as well Rask. He has pretty damn good chemistry with Thompson and Tuch….not to mention Eichel. Play the guy with the right people and he’s just fine.

He never made the playoffs? Weak. We sucked his whole time here. He’s a winger, none of that is on him. We traded him to the other worst team in the league. He’s a huge part of the upswing.

Coaching staff wanting him off? Not buying it. I think the contract is the only reason he’s gone, just like every single other fa player that’s moved on since. Ownership wanted to make a change, make people believe everything was going to be different under them. New attitudes. They used him in part to create this. As they used Lindy and Hanifin who were both ridiculously maligned for “not wanting to win” because they wouldn’t sign under value deals. Look how we negotiate the whole time since….Skinner had an up and down career here that needed and clearly wanted a new start. He wasn’t staying no matter what from either way. We used him to begin the changes. The story was framed the way it was.

To continue that theme we did things like say only hard working fellas like Foegele are going to make this team now and pretended he did that when he had already made the team late in the season before and we had multiple spots open. He couldn’t not make the team without us spending more money. He didn’t play that well in preseason.

But I digress. The hardest line to read in your post is the last one. Very few people defend Jeff Skinner on this board. No one glosses over a single wart. They get amplified here the loudest.

We got the best deal we could get, and we’re getting lucky with the picks. Good enough. I was happy he was gone for his sake, and I’m very happy for him this year as he’s always seemed like a very good human being who works as hard if not harder than most to be a good player. He deserves success and I hope he gets it.

 

[WreckingCrew]

Look I loved Skinner, and the return sucked at the time, but I'm also glad we weren't the ones paying $9M/yr for 8 years to keep him...that's more than Aho gets and he more consistently gets 30-35G & PPG pace over the past 5 seasons (and just short the year before)

 

[Svechhammer]

He was maybe our best goal scorer ever, that we struggled with offensive depth during most of his career.

No chemistry? Weak. He had chemistry with both Erik Cole and the Finns, as well Rask. He has pretty damn good chemistry with Thompson and Tuch….not to mention Eichel. Play the guy with the right people and he’s just fine.

He never made the playoffs? Weak. We sucked his whole time here. He’s a winger, none of that is on him. We traded him to the other worst team in the league. He’s a huge part of the upswing.

Coaching staff wanting him off? Not buying it. I think the contract is the only reason he’s gone, just like every single other fa player that’s moved on since. Ownership wanted to make a change, make people believe everything was going to be different under them. New attitudes. They used him in part to create this. As they used Lindy and Hanifin who were both ridiculously maligned for “not wanting to win” because they wouldn’t sign under value deals. Look how we negotiate the whole time since….Skinner had an up and down career here that needed and clearly wanted a new start. He wasn’t staying no matter what from either way. We used him to begin the changes. The story was framed the way it was.

To continue that theme we did things like say only hard working fellas like Foegele are going to make this team now and pretended he did that when he had already made the team late in the season before and we had multiple spots open. He couldn’t not make the team without us spending more money. He didn’t play that well in preseason.

But I digress. The hardest line to read in your post is the last one. Very few people defend Jeff Skinner on this board. No one glosses over a single wart. They get amplified here the loudest.

We got the best deal we could get, and we’re getting lucky with the picks. Good enough. I was happy he was gone for his sake, and I’m very happy for him this year as he’s always seemed like a very good human being who works as hard if not harder than most to be a good player. He deserves success and I hope he gets it.

Ok

 

[A Star is Burns]

I really don't think this is that difficult. Much like we may have "lost" the Hamilton trade ultimately, it got us where we needed to go. I'm not going to bad mouth Skinner because he's a fun player that I enjoyed having. But we didn't want to sign him long-term and he may not have been the best fit here anymore. He didn't want to go to many destinations as I recall and we got what we could. It's nice that we got some good players out of the picks, but I don't think just the value of the picks was all that bad for the situation either.

I mentioned it with the Oilers and Puljujarvi recently, but sometimes teams get so caught up in "winning" a trade that they shoot their own dick off. We ripped off the band-aid, took the best trade we could muster, and ended up better for it in the short and long run.

 

[Joe McGrath]

Agreed. Koochie is great. But that was an interchangeable draft pick, and the trade as a whole is still an utter disgrace.

Why is it a disgrace? He had a no trade clause, wanted to be close to home and the other team close to his home couldn’t afford him. The fact that they got the #35 pick and used it to pick a guy that is currently the starting goalie means something. That’s why you trade for draft picks.

Even though this trade worked out perfectly for all parties involved It was a disgrace? WTF?

 

[HisIceness]

April 4th, 2019 made me forget about this trade. Well in the days after there were some memes about how Skinner missed out on the playoffs that reminded me of it but I wasn't upset about it anymore.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

For all the outrage over "We couldn't even get one of Buffalo's 1st round picks", those picks were 29 and 31. There Canes got the 36 and 69 (2020) and a 6th round pick.

 

[tarheelhockey]

He's a one way player that has had chemistry issues every stage of his career that our coaching staff wanted off this team ASAP after they were hired and he's not yet played a single playoff game in his career.

Yeah he scores goals, but there are a lot of warts to his game that get glossed over often when he's discussed on here.

I get that they/Rod wanted him gone, and I think they've been vindicated in the direction they decided to go (which also includes moving on from Faulk, Lindholm, Hanifin, etc.). They had a team built around players that you shouldn't build a team around, that was obvious at the time and is even more obvious now.

But the decision to move on from Skinner, and the trade that they made to do it, are two different judgment calls. The trade was just bad. We got better value for Eric Staal in a TDL trade than we did for Skinner in a summer trade, and there wasn't much of a gap between them by the end.

You aren’t a reliable 30-40 goal scorer if you’ve played 12 years and never scored 30+ in back to back seasons.

This is the 6th time he's scored (or paced, in the case of the current season) 30 goals and he had 28 in another season. 7/12 seasons at that level is extremely reliable.

During the same period, the following players have matched or exceeded those numbers:

Sidney Crosby
Nikita Kucherov
Brad Marchand
Auston Matthews
Connor McDavid
Alex Ovechkin
Joe Pavelski (actually falls slightly short but he's so close it seems more fair to count him than not)
Jeff Skinner
Steven Stamkos
John Tavares
Jonathan Toews


We all understand that Skinner has flaws that make him the weakest link on that list, but he is still on that short-list of reliable goal scorers of this generation. And that's even after the years where Ralph Kruger all but intentionally tanked his career (or I should say, both of their careers). Asking him to be more reliable than he has been, is basically asking him to be a franchise player rather than the complementary piece we all know he is.

 

[Unsustainable]

Koochie has more playoff experience than Skinner at this point

 

[Navin R Slavin]

It's been 4 years. He's better off. We're better off. Let it go.

 

[DaveG]

I really don't think this is that difficult. Much like we may have "lost" the Hamilton trade ultimately, it got us where we needed to go. I'm not going to bad mouth Skinner because he's a fun player that I enjoyed having. But we didn't want to sign him long-term and he may not have been the best fit here anymore. He didn't want to go to many destinations as I recall and we got what we could. It's nice that we got some good players out of the picks, but I don't think just the value of the picks was all that bad for the situation either.

I mentioned it with the Oilers and Puljujarvi recently, but sometimes teams get so caught up in "winning" a trade that they shoot their own dick off. We ripped off the band-aid, took the best trade we could muster, and ended up better for it in the short and long run.

This is what it comes down to in the end. IIRC he rejected a trade to LA at the draft that offseason (which likely would have involved a first rounder coming our way), which led to them signing Kovalchuk instead.

 

[Borsig]

The fact remains he's on that list and still like a -130 over his career or something. That's pretty telling

 

[Joe McGrath]

I get that they/Rod wanted him gone, and I think they've been vindicated in the direction they decided to go (which also includes moving on from Faulk, Lindholm, Hanifin, etc.). They had a team built around players that you shouldn't build a team around, that was obvious at the time and is even more obvious now.

But the decision to move on from Skinner, and the trade that they made to do it, are two different judgment calls. The trade was just bad. We got better value for Eric Staal in a TDL trade than we did for Skinner in a summer trade, and there wasn't much of a gap between them by the end.



This is the 6th time he's scored (or paced, in the case of the current season) 30 goals and he had 28 in another season. 7/12 seasons at that level is extremely reliable.

During the same period, the following players have matched or exceeded those numbers:

Sidney Crosby
Nikita Kucherov
Brad Marchand
Auston Matthews
Connor McDavid
Alex Ovechkin
Joe Pavelski (actually falls slightly short but he's so close it seems more fair to count him than not)
Jeff Skinner
Steven Stamkos
John Tavares
Jonathan Toews


We all understand that Skinner has flaws that make him the weakest link on that list, but he is still on that short-list of reliable goal scorers of this generation. And that's even after the years where Ralph Kruger all but intentionally tanked his career (or I should say, both of their careers). Asking him to be more reliable than he has been, is basically asking him to be a franchise player rather than the complementary piece we all know he is.

All I said is he isn’t a reliable 30-40 goal scorer. Almost no one is, as your list suggests. He’s a goal scorer, that’s what he does and he’s damn good at it.

Curiously, you left out MaxPac out of this list even though he has 6 actual 30 goal seasons and 3 others he paced for 30. In his prime he did it 4 years in a row. Injuries have derailed him since but he had another 30 in Vegas two years ago and paced for it easily the last two years.

Edit:Tarasenko isn’t there either even though he scored 30+ 6 times in reality in 6 full seasons and not 5 times in 12. If we’re including numbers that are “close enough” to 30 and seasons on pace for 30 I’m guessing we can add another 10 or so players to your list.

 

[Bunch of Jurcos]

It's been 4 years. He's better off. We're better off. Let it go.

We're winning @ 6 in a row, points in like 12 or 13 in a row, our goalie is playing God tier and we are doing it without significant players. Gotta let the folks have something to bitch about. At least we can keep this in one place instead of 5 different threads.

 

[A Star is Burns]

We're winning @ 6 in a row, points in like 12 or 13 in a row, our goalie is playing God tier and we are doing it without significant players. Gotta let the folks have something to bitch about. At least we can keep this in one place instead of 5 different threads.

Some of us like to bitch about the bitching, thank you very much. Good day to you!