Jeff Skinner - $9M healthy scratch

The main factor is coaching and our goalies are trash. Put MAF and Gallant on this team and we're in the playoffs.

 

Soon they need to scratch ten million player too.

 

Krueger is not good of a coach but Skinner not helping himself either.

 

Who said so?

 

"Change our teams and we are a playoff team" - Every team that currently isn't in the playoffs.

They are 4th last in G/GM and 12th last in GA/GM. I am sure the coach and goalie are a big part of that, but they aren't the only part of it. Eichel, Dahlin and Hall with 4 goals in 45 games just isn't good enough. They are your best players and need to produce as such. The rest of the team is leaving a lot to be desired as well. I don't have the answer, but it seems to be deeper than the goalie and coach.

 

I guess. I only mentioned one player making this a playoff team, a coach doesn't count as a roster player. I think a real NHL coach will get this team going, the talent is obviously there. Their advanced stats have been middle of the pack, not bottom tier.

Also not sure if you guys know this but 11 guys got Covid, a few pretty bad. Risto our best d man is out for who knows how long with Covid and Jake McCabe our 2nd best dman is out the entire season breaking his entire knee..

How many teams could lose their top 2 dman and continue playing well?

 

How exactly do you know youll get 30-40 goals out of him? He hasnt come close to that since he got to Buffalo outside of that hot like 30 games two seasons ago...

 

Its been in multiple threads that its not a very bad contract and at most a ~$1M overpaid.

 

How many teams are going to the playoffs with Jake McCabe as their second best D?

 

That contract is hilarious. Arguably the worst signed post 2005.

 

He was playing well this year before he got hurt. The best top 2 pairing I've seen on the Sabres in awhile. Not that its saying much. I don't want to make excuses as clearly the team sucks, but there are reasons they suck more this year then they should.

 

Our advance stats are not too bad actually. Seems like a little bit of bad luck. But its been a decade of misery as a fan. Luckily the Bills are good again or it would really suck.

Team Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

 

Skinner is getting shots off. For a team that has been as terrible as the Sabres 5v5, that has some value. Buffalo should stop jerking him around on the 4th line and play him with offensive players in the top 6.

 

I wish we had your coach.

 

If they just let him walk it would have been a horrible signal to the fanbase and to Eichel that they weren't serious about building a contender

 

Damn Jeff really skinned 'em.

 

How? They could easily have offered him a short deal instead.

This is some submissive attitude. I'd hate to have a leader think like this. I'd fire them on the spot.

 

What moronic management. Skinner is not a 4th line player. Why not put McDavid in goal and bitch about how overpaid he is.

It's impossible to determine if Skinner is a 1, 5, 7 or 9 million dollar player if you don't play him in the role that net him the contract. But it's possible to determine ( and obvious) that Krueger is not an NHL coach.

 

Too many players get paid after a career year and then they never come close to it.

I hate guaranteed contracts. Three years max. Let the market take care of the rest.

Bet you see a lot better hockey and baseball.

 

sure they could have offered it, he wouldn't have taken it. Easy to say from the arm chair that they should have let him walk, you need to understand the position that franchise has been in

 

Not really. The fanbase is hopefully smart enough to understand that some contracts are just awful and actually hurt the chances of building a contender. Skinner did not have the consistent scoring track record for the contract he got.

 

Skinner was never a 9M player so we don't have to wonder about that. His production evaporated in the same role during the second half of 2018-19 under Housley, but we can keep blaming Krueger that Skinner hasn't been producing for nearly two calendar years and is getting outproduced by his 4th line linemates currently.

 

i mean he's not some Cheechoo, hat 37 goals a couple years earlier, several other 30 goal seasons on some pretty lousy Carolina teams, and won the Calder at 18. He had the pedigree and it was understandable to think that now that he finally had an elite center to play with he would hit a new level. Many people thought he was overpaid but no one thought he would fall off this hard, he's not even 30 yet.

 

That's true. But he also had inconsistency issues, concussion history and a reputation for being a soft player. Having just scored 40 goals may make some people overlook these red flags and it's easy to judge this contract in retrospect, I realize, but it was a bad contract at the time of signing too.