We’ve already got deals and there’s more about the yet to be bought out Jeff Skinner
LAS VEGAS — The day before the first round of the 2024 NHL Draft, the Buffalo Sabres are already getting busy…just not in the way everyone was expecting just yet.
The Sabres traded the No. 11 pick to the San Jose Sharks and acquired the Sharks No. 14 pick as well as the 42nd pick of the draft, a second rounder.
As far as pick swaps go at the draft, this trade checks all the boxes for it to make sense. The Sharks wanted to get their second pick of the first round to be a little bit higher and to do that it cost them a second later pick.
“We really liked the group of players we see ourselves potentially targeting at 14, we pick up an extra asset which is good value at pick 42,” Sabres GM Kevyn Adams said on Thursday. “And then that’s certainly something that we’ll talk about. We’re actively shopping around to look and see if there’s a deal to make to help our roster better with pick 42, so this just gives us a little bit more ammunition.”
Translation: Adams has a few pots cooking and adding another second-round pick is the kind of grease that helps get the wheels in motion for a trade to happen. If you’re hoping that would be a trade that would help move Jeff Skinner out of Buffalo, we’ve got some bad news for you.
Adams was asked if there’s an appetite from Skinner and his agents to waive his no-move clause at all, his response was to the point.
“No, there’s been honest communication, but no indication that’s something that they’re willing to look at,” Adams said. “But all you can do is just have honest conversations and explain certain situations that could be out there, and we’ve done that. But yeah, I wouldn’t say there’s been any sort of traction or movement.”
Attacking the next couple days and the weeks to come for the offseason is not going to be easy, but it needs to be done aggressively.
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Pick swaps don’t generally get everyone overly excited unless it’s a move to get into the top-10 of a draft. As Adams has made clear, he’s open to doing anything to make the team better now. If trading down in the first round to add assets to make a trade happen that brings in a player whom they view to be vital to future success, then that’s a move worth making.
But whether or not this pick swap is one that’s setting the table for a bigger deal for an actual roster player remains to be seen and, frankly, it’s hard to expect such a deal to materialize right now.
In Adams’ tenure as Sabres general manager, the majority of the trades he’s made have involved players who wanted out of Buffalo (Jack Eichel), players that were going to have a hard time keeping in Buffalo (Casey Mittelstadt and Sam Reinhart for instance), or veterans like Kyle Okposo he did a solid for to move them to a contender. Looking back at his trade history, it’s not overly inspiring and that’s keeping in mind how screwed up things were when he took over as GM in 2020.
But, as we wrote here yesterday, now is the time for Adams to show his mettle and not allow the machinations of how difficult trade negotiations can be allow him to fall back on the easier means to address the roster.
Sure, signing free agents can be easier, but unless they’re eager to pay premiums for the better players available (and it’s hard to imagine they are), then free agency is only there to help fill holes lower in the lineup and for depth needs, not for the bigger areas.
“I think you just want to see guys that maybe have some versatility that can bump up your lineup if you have injuries, even if it’s for a short time, have versatility that they could kill penalties or be power play, you know what I mean,” Adams said. “You’re just having that balance. So, it’s a long way of saying, I don’t know if I learned that last summer. You kind of just know, in this league that you have to have a lot of depth, you have to have people buying into their roles. And then you have to make sure that in saying all of that, that your players are completely aligned with the coach in the way that you’re expecting they’d be playing every night.”
Being harder to play against and having the Sabres be a more physical team are solid aims to have and it’s likely that Lindy Ruff would demand that become part of their makeup. Ruff will want these guys to forecheck aggressively and finish checks off when the opportunity is there for them. The intensity in which the Devils played under Ruff was clear, as was the speed and skill he had his top players play with.
These are reasons why the conversation about Skinner being bought out have arisen. It’s not that Skinner doesn’t play aggressively, he does, but it’s not a full 200 feet of fury and delivering hits isn’t in his hockey DNA. The one way around that is if he scores 30-40 goals a season and hedging bets on that while he gets older makes it more of a long shot than anywhere remotely close to a sure thing.
These will be a fascinating few days for the Sabres through the draft and into free agency on July 1. The draft will see new players picked but should also have new players added via trade. If the trades don’t materialize, however, all attention goes to free agency and who they pick and how they spend the money to turn this into a playoff team.
We assume Skinner will be bought out, but it’s almost more interesting how they maneuver if they don’t. But the one thing that holds true through all of this is Adams can’t do nothing and hope Ruff alone can make the roster into one that reaches the postseason and can excel once they get there.