Jeff Skinner - $9M healthy scratch

[KirkAlbuquerque]

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.

It was an overpayment for sure for a 35 goal 20 assist guy but the way he’s fallen off is pretty crazy.

 

[FeatherHead]

Well...it’s better than the contract given to Okposo. Or Ehrhoff. It’s sure as hell better than what Filpula got. It’s amazing what Buffalo has dishes out to some of the hot trash on their roster. Imagine what they’d have to pay people that can actually f’ing play.

 

[Kuznetsnow]

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.

It's not that surprising given that his linemates produce better playing a 4th line game in a 4th line roles which is a completely different way of getting points. Not many skilled players can bump and grind their way to good production playing start and stop 12 minutes a night. Bad as he was getting jerked around last year playing with Marcus Johansson as a stopgap C he should have been given a few games with Eichel or at least Staal to see if he can find his form, and if not then be demoted. As it stands they buried a guy that wanted to be there and they're stuck with for a long time at a huge cap hit, even though he was looking about as good as he could be on the 4th line for the first few games. That's absolutely terrible management however you slice it.

 

[Voight]

I still don't get why they gave him such a deal. Yea he scored 40 & had a good season..... but he ended up with what, 63 points? Not like he scored 40 and had another 35/40 assists. Never mind by that point there was plenty of evidence to show he has peaked as a 30-40 goal 60-65 points guy. At the time the deal made him the 7th or 8th highest paid winger IIRC.... clearly it was a massive overpayment from the start

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Even if Skinner isn't the 40 goal scorer he was in a contract year, he should at least be a 25 goal guy with a shot at 30 in a good year. That he's been reduced to a healthy scratch is baffling. He isn't even 30 yet. The contract was never going to be fair for what he was even at his peak, but it shouldn't be as absolutely brutal as it currently is.

 

[Chayos]

On the bright side that contract only lasts till the end of time.

Paradise by the scoreboard light!

i'm praying for the end of time
It's all that I can do
Praying for the end of time,
So I can end my time with you!

 

[Digital Kid]

Just going to help certain people on Page 5 who maybe read posts but do not understand what they have read.

Yes an owner should have control over his or her team.
This is the NHL, not recreational beer league where players show up when they want and not have to be accountable to a coach, a GM or an owner.

No one is getting dropped and not paid. My proposal was that Skinner could be dropped tomorrow and paid next year's salary ($9,000,000) plus the remainder of the current year's salary. Following the February 23 game, Buffalo played 16 of 56 games, so (56-16) / 56 x $9,000,000 is $6,428,571. Added together that is $15,428,571, which is hardly "Not pay that player"

Skinner would be a free agent, and since his value is overwhelming in the eyes of certain people, then certain people could snatch him up to a mutually beneficial contract.

I understand there is a factor GMs use called 'comparables' when evaluating what to pay players.

For instance, between 2015/16 and 2017/18, Skinner had 89 goals and 74 assists for 163 points in 243 games (0.67 pts/game) and was -30 as a Left Wing. 27 of those minuses came from his final season in Carolina, so an outlier.

To me, a possible comparable player would be Rickard Rakell of Anaheim. Almost same age and in 220 games had 87 goals and 76 assists for 163 points (0.74 pts/game) but a +15 plus/minus. Rakell had just signed a 6 year/$22.8 m contract with five of the seasons paying $3,789,444 per annum.

So comparing $9m and $3.79m a year for two similar guys shows how insane the signing was by Buffalo.

Like paying for a steak, baked potato and cob of corn for $25 but getting a $10 turkey sandwich instead, I would ask the waiter to refund me fifteen bucks and tell him the next customer in the restaurant can have the steak dinner.

Two schools of thought: you pays your money and you takes your chances, or 30-day exchange on item with receipt.

Sorry to have rambled.

 

[LeafChief]

And the Sabres are going to give Hall that matching contract.

Hall/Skinner/Okposo to carry the mail when Eichel leaves in the offseason.

 

[explore]

I still don't get why they gave him such a deal. Yea he scored 40 & had a good season..... but he ended up with what, 63 points? Not like he scored 40 and had another 35/40 assists. Never mind by that point there was plenty of evidence to show he has peaked as a 30-40 goal 60-65 points guy. At the time the deal made him the 7th or 8th highest paid winger IIRC.... clearly it was a massive overpayment from the start

Rumor is the Pegula's pushed Botterill to give him the super long contract. Botterill wanted to go shorter term (which is his MO since he signed Reinhart to a bridge deal most of the fanbase didn't agree with, Sabres fanbase wanted him locked up long-term)

Anyway, Skinner can't be traded or sent down due to his NMC and he can't realistically be bought out because the buyout period would last something like 13 years. He's also incapable/unwilling to adapt his game to Krueger's system, so I don't think this is going to be the last time he's scratched

They're probably gonna tell him to stay home and not come back at some point

 

[tarheelhockey]

Well, the 40-goal season is skewed since that's what it means when half of his goals were scored during the first 27 games of the season and he barely scored the last half of the season. That's just what the term means statistically. I'm not denying that he scored 40 goals, or saying that they don't count, I'm just pointing out that Skinner was playing unsustainably for the early part of the season and it was clearly an outlier.

Secondly, I think as a Canes fan, you should know better than me, but wasn't Skinner sent off to the third/fourth line by Canes coaches as well?

At least for the Sabres, I think the issue is Skinner doesn't like to adapt to play within a system, he just does his own thing like Evander Kane; and a player like Skinner is going to frustrate coaches trying to implement a system by not listening and doing whatever he wants.

As a coach, it's a lose-lose situation. If you give in to Skinner and let him do what he wants, the other players will take note of that, and he may in fact cause chaos by doing random stuff and staying out longer than he should. If you send Skinner off to an island, then you lose any hypothetical goals or offense he creates because you haven't surrounded him with other players who'd generate offense that Skinner could potentially score on.

Either way, Skinner needs to be bought out and Krueger needs to be replaced, but even if Krueger is replaced I don't see how a competent coach like Trotz or Gallant or Boudreau doesn't bench Skinner when he doesn't listen.

I guess the question here is do you want to spend $9M for Skinner to score ~30-40 goals and maybe win some games, or do you want to spend $9M to teach Jeff Skinner a lesson about following instructions?

This goes back to, I get what Krueger is doing but I don't get what he's trying to accomplish. At this pace he's going to get canned so fast that the system he implements won't mean anything anyway, the team isn't actually any better with troublemaker Skinner in the pressbox, and Skinner's still going to get paid whether he's doing his job or not. So... maybe now's the time to stop feuding with the talent?

 

[Voight]

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.

I don't think many people thought he was about to hit a new level and become a 70/80 point guy all of a sudden. He hit a career high in goals yes, but at that point he had been in the league for quite some time and you knew what you had with him - a 30-40 goal, 20-30 assist guy who'd score about 60 to 65 points a year. Nothing more than that.

 

[613Leafer]

I don't think many people thought he was about to hit a new level and become a 70/80 point guy all of a sudden. He hit a career high in goals yes, but at that point he had been in the league for quite some time and you knew what you had with him - a 30-40 goal, 20-30 assist guy who'd score about 60 to 65 points a year. Nothing more than that.

I think that's even generous. Prior to signing the contract, he had 244 goals and 198 assists (442 points) in 661 games, which is a 30 goal and 55 point pace. The year before his contract year, he had 24 goals and 49 points in 82 games, so it's not like his career average is being weighted down by his early years and that there was a clear progression to being a better player. His contract year wasn't really any better than his rookie season.

9M on an 8 year deal for an NHLer with nine years under his belt and zero PPG seasons or even 70+ point seasons, while also playing one-dimensional hockey and consistency issues year-to-year is nuts.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

Despite losing Rieder in the Isles game, he was scratched again last night in favour of someone else. The Sabres won. So I expect him to be scratched again for the next game.

 

[Stickpucker]

So reading all this is Kruger basically Torterrelli /w much worse results?

A poor mans Torterreli if you will?

 

[HurricaneFanatic]

I live in Toronto and get Buffalo sports radio. Even the talk show guys have no idea what to say anymore. Things are bleak for Saber fans.

 

[stokes84]

The guy scores 40 goals, signs his payday, and checked out. There need to be SOME performance clauses in these contracts. Guaranteeing that kind of money with no recourse is such a bad business model.

 

[HurricaneFanatic]

The guy scores 40 goals, signs his payday, and checked out. There need to be SOME performance clauses in these contracts. Guaranteeing that kind of money with no recourse is such a bad business model.

YUP, in any sports.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I think most people knew this contract would be awful...but I don't think anyone thought he'd be getting outscored by goalies at the age of 28 (Jarry, Lankinen, & Khudobin have 2 points each while another 9 goalies are tied with Skinner with 1).

 

[NK94]

At this point, both Buffalo and Skinner are better off agreeing on a contract termination ala Mike Richards in LA. Not like the Sabres would be using the cap space for much of anything since they're going to blow it up again.

 

[Zach716]

At this point, both Buffalo and Skinner are better off agreeing on a contract termination ala Mike Richards in LA. Not like the Sabres would be using the cap space for much of anything since they're going to blow it up again.

Why would Skinner have any incentive to terminate 9m a year

 

[RorschachWJK]

A person with a modicum of dignity would agree to a suitable package and termination of the deal. But there are the Nylanders of the world who can't even spell the word dignity, being intimate friends of greed...

 

[banks]

A person with a modicum of dignity would agree to a suitable package and termination of the deal. But there are the Nylanders of the world who can't even spell the word dignity, being intimate friends of greed...

There's not even a method of doing this in the CBA, yet you're acting like anything less is somehow despicable. Give me a break. He's not the first and only overpaid player the league has ever seen.

Get off your high horse. I don't believe, for a second, that you'd turn down 9 million dollars in his place.

 

[Thrasymachus]

At this point, both Buffalo and Skinner are better off agreeing on a contract termination ala Mike Richards in LA. Not like the Sabres would be using the cap space for much of anything since they're going to blow it up again.

why would Skinner be "better off" tunring down like 50+ mil?

 

[banks]

At this point, both Buffalo and Skinner are better off agreeing on a contract termination ala Mike Richards in LA. Not like the Sabres would be using the cap space for much of anything since they're going to blow it up again.

Mike Richards' contract was terminated after he violated that contract and was arrested. Lombardi, the GM at the time, described the process as "the most traumatic of my career" and compared it to a cheating spouse.

LA also has a cap hit from Richards that will last until 2032. No, that's not a typo.

Yet you think you can do this on a whim because a highly paid player got scratched? Come on.

 

[NK94]

A person with a modicum of dignity would agree to a suitable package and termination of the deal. But there are the Nylanders of the world who can't even spell the word dignity, being intimate friends of greed...

Nylander is an absolute bargain at 6.9M. There's many players who make more that are producing less. Slumps happen to everyone, but not everyone gets a front page headline line talking about how awful they are as they're compared to IKEA furniture.