The Buffalo Sabres bought out the final three years of his contract and the conclusion is bittersweet and ultimately predictable.
What at once seemed unlikely and morphed into the inevitable has happened. Buffalo Sabres GM Kevyn Adams said they’ve begun the process of buying out the final three years of Jeff Skinner’s eight-year, $72 million contract and will part ways with him. That was made official Sunday afternoon.
“It’s a step-by-step process,” Adams said. “That process was started early (Saturday) morning. (Assistant general manager) Mark Jakubowski, he’d be better in terms of specifics and just the timeline of it, but that was started and that’s our intention to move forward.”
In six seasons with the Sabres, Skinner had one of the wildest roller coaster rides a player could have in one place. You could even say his output mirrored how the team went in a way.
Having his career in Buffalo end now like this started to feel like an inevitability a while ago, only that it wasn’t supposed to happen right now. In a year or two, sure, but with three years left it always seemed like it would be too big of a bite for the team to take in regard to how it would be punished against the salary cap. Having six years to pay off the buyout isn’t ideal, even though it ultimately saves the team money.
Now the Sabres are left with a hole in their top-six forward group and must find a way to replace that productivity through free agency or via trade. It’s time for risk management to be put to the test.
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Skinner exiting the Sabres comes with a classic bittersweet sentiment to it.
When he was acquired from Carolina back in August of 2018, it happened as he entered the final year of his contract and joined a Sabres team looking to take the next step with their core of Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Rasmus Ristolainen and No. 1 pick Rasmus Dahlin. Skinner’s history of goal scoring, especially at even strength, was necessary to add to the group after they dealt Evander Kane the previous season to San Jose and Ryan O’Reilly earlier in the offseason to St. Louis.
It’s crazy to think it wasn’t that long ago but still felt like a lifetime. But Skinner arrived in Buffalo with motivation to prove Carolina was wrong about him. The Hurricanes were quick to disparage him after his departure and vowed they would be better without him than they were with him. At that time, both franchises were tripping over themselves trying to get back to the playoffs and the Hurricanes’ young core at the time with Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen and 2018 first-round pick Andrei Svechnikov were coming into their own.
While Skinner popped off for 40 goals in his first season in Buffalo, the Hurricanes wound up going to the Eastern Conference Final where they lost to the Boston Bruins. It’s hard to believe Skinner was holding Carolina back, but the fact they not only made the playoffs instead of Buffalo but advanced to the conference final helped support the case Carolina management made against Skinner. Truth is they probably would’ve made the playoffs with him anyway but perhaps wouldn’t have had the same success. We’ll never know, but we do know Carolina became a force in the East ever since they made the trade.
Meanwhile, the Sabres continued to be lost in the woods with Skinner on board, but they committed big-time to him after that 40-goal debut season with the now bought out eight-year, $72 million contract that the Sabres got into a bidding war against themselves to get done.
Skinner had some great seasons with Buffalo. He also had perhaps his two lowest points in his career here as well. Being made to practice with the taxi squad under coach Ralph Krueger and getting relegated to fourth line duty because of his lack of commitment to playing defense is what won’t be forgotten. It was made even more damning because the Sabres still struggled to score goals and here was their 40-goal scorer getting buried in the lineup or out of it completely.
That he played in his 1,000th career game this season and reached that milestone at such a seemingly young age of 31. It’s an amazing accomplishment and yet for a lot of people it seems hollow because he’s yet to play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It’s always felt a bit unfair to hang that all around his neck. He’s not a general manager nor a head coach after all. But star players have to have more of an effect on their team, right?
Skinner has always been a complementary star. He was forced into the role of being the lead star in Carolina despite playing with so many other star players at various points in their careers. He was there for the early part of Aho’s time in Carolina, the bulk of Eric and Jordan Staal’s tenure as well as guys like Elias Lindholm, Justin Faulk, Noah Hanifin, and even Alexander Semin’s brief stay in Raleigh. Those are all good players, but Carolina lacked depth and experience.
Sounds a lot like his time in Buffalo, doesn’t it? Hell, he even got to play with Eric Staal again here, not that it was a memorable time for either of them. But even still, Skinner working alongside Eichel, Reinhart, Dahlin, Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch, and Owen Power offered up a lot of reasons for excitement, but the rest of the roster lacked in various levels of cohesion, talent, and maturity to get to the postseason, and he shares the blame in that too, but he’s not the sole reason the Sabres never made the playoffs during his tenure. But if they break the 13-year postseason drought next season in the first year without him…well, he’s used to being scapegoated.
And even though the slings and arrows he took from his former employers in Carolina would’ve been enough for anyone to want to punch back, Skinner never once took the opportunity to return fire. Anytime he’s been given the chance to fire back at anyone that’s ripped him he’s turned the other cheek. And we know he doesn’t fear telling someone off. Doing that to opponents on the ice is one of the more oddly endearing qualities about him. A smaller guy deeply upsetting foes by running his mouth and being a nuisance? It’s delightful in its madness.
But what got us here to the point where a buyout was the right decision was how his play this season dipped to a point that Don Granato didn’t trust him enough to keep him in the top-six. His output was down to 24 goals and how he functioned on the power play, granted it was a power play with myriad issues, made it impossible to ignore some of the maddening choices with and without the puck.
It was fun that his goal song this season was “Breaking Free” but that title also described how he was functioning within the team’s system. While he was pressing for more scoring chances and goals, he was doing so in ways in which he wasn’t using his teammates to help make scoring opportunities happen. They weren’t happening for Skinner, and they weren’t there for anyone else because his penchant for overhandling the puck would lead to turnovers, tie-ups, and moments lost to get a puck on net to create a chance.
It was the sort of thing that if you noticed it once it would make you see if it happened again, and it inevitably would and then you couldn’t unsee it for the rest of the time you’d watch him play. Suddenly the joy of watching such a skilled player do what they do best was lost because he wasn’t playing to his, or his teammates, strengths and the need to try and make something happen would override the situation.
That sort of freelancing away from the system in place and how it would drag down younger teammates or lead to his fellow veterans not getting more opportunities and eventually turn into defensive breakdowns was too much to bear. With three more years on his contract and being beyond 30 years old along with bringing in Lindy Ruff—who would seem likely to go mad at trying to find a way to get Skinner involved—letting him break free with a sizable check to take home was the right move.
With Skinner gone and the Sabres already in the process of trying to find a top-six forward, they’re in a somewhat desperate position to replace a lot of offense. Although Skinner only had 24 goals, taking those goals away from the lineup with the way they performed this season makes an erratic group it even less potent.
You’d hope to see bounce-back seasons from Thompson, Tuch, Dylan Cozens, and a healthy Jack Quinn and you’d hope to see even more growth from J-J Peterka.
A healthy Thompson, which we saw late in the season, should look more like the guy we saw in the previous two seasons. Cozens with an offseason to refresh his own perspective after playing very well at World Championships again should bounce back. He was snakebit early in the season and had very little shooting luck and that can pile up on any player’s psyche. A little bit of goldfish brain would go a long way when the puck isn’t going in. Just forget about it right away and keep trying.
Then there’s Zach Benson who, after a very good rookie season, should evolve with that experience under his belt. He showed that the defensive side of his game is very good, particularly his forechecking, and while the offense wasn’t quite there, what we saw is a player who could be a menace around the net and in open space…kind of like Jeff Skinner. It helps that Benson is able to make opposing players get mad instantaneously like Skinner does as well. But what that offensive evolution is, if it does indeed happen next season, is unknown.
Planning ahead for next season with this many “if,” “hopefully,” and “potentially” qualifiers is a problem because if one or two of them don’t play out the way they hoped, they’d be scrambling to try and find a way to fix it on the fly in-season and we know by now that trying to make moves then is infinitely more difficult than it is now.
Adams re-iterated on Saturday in Las Vegas that he’s trying like hell to make some deals, but they require the other team to want to make it as well and it hasn’t happened to this point yet. While he mentioned he had a couple other things he was still talking to other GMs about and hoping to get something done, the best he can do is keep pestering them and continue to pepper offers around the league.
But with free agency starting at noon Eastern on Monday, the possibility they’ll have to address the top-six issue in free agency is looking even likelier to happen. If that sounds foreboding for trying to make changes…you’d be right.
It doesn’t take a professor to realize if the Sabres don’t address these vacancies appropriately and Skinner signs with a contender on the cheap because he’s already got a fat check from Buffalo in his pocket and goes on to make the playoffs, Buffalo better be right there with him breaking their own drought.
Or else.