The Jeff Skinner saga

Anyone in the Buffalo media following the Sabres has had a front row seat to the Ralph Krueger/Jeff Skinner saga which began last season. Skinner was coming into the 2019-20 season fresh off a career high 40-goal campaign armed with a recently-inked 8yr./$72 million contract after skating on the top line with captain Jack Eichel and his trusty sidekick Sam Reinhart. In a training camp move Krueger, Buffalo's new head coach, decided to shift Skinner down to the second line for more scoring depth.

The premise for Krueger's decision, it would seem, was based upon the 2018-19 season where the Sabres were clearly a one-line team under his predecessor. The players on the Eichel line had accounted for 90 combined goals while the other 20-plus players lit the lamp for 131 goals. Buffalo ran a hot streak early in the season that lasted from October 20 to November 27 where they went 14-2-2 scoring 64 goals in the process. Skinner amassed 19 of his 40 goals during that stretch with Eichel (21) and Reinhart (11) combining for 32 assists. Beating the Sabres meant containing the top line and shutting down secondary scoring. As Buffalo's fall from the top of the league to a non-playoff team might indicate, opponents took that to heart.

As the new bench-boss, Krueger said he thought it was best that to spread the scoring out a little and proceeded to moved rookie Victor Olofsson to the top line. That dropped Skinner to the second line where he skated with winger-turned-center Marcus Johansson and former St. Louis Blues' checking line winger Vladimir Sobotka at right wing. The team got off to a hot start going 9-2-2 in the month of October with Skinner scoring seven goals in his new second-line role while Eichel and Reinhart would combine for 12 goals and 16 assists in those first 13 games. Olofsson contributed six goals, all on the powerplay.

The synergy was there...until it wasn't.

Once again the Sabres dropped in the standings and ended up outside the playoffs for the ninth consecutive year. Skinner would score only seven more goals over in the final 46 games played during the Covid-19 shortened season giving him 14 total, his second worst total since scoring 13 goals during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. 

With that sharp decline in scoring from Skinner and a team that faltered again, some of the focus moving forward would be how Krueger would handle his top two lines with the off season additions of free agent winger Taylor Hall and the trade for second line center Eric Staal. The easy approach would be for Skinner to remain in the top-six and after his struggles the previous season, it was pretty obvious that the 28 yr. old winger needed more than bottom-six talent surrounding him.

But Krueger had other designs. True to the immediate post-trade exuberance of a possible Hall/Eichel combo, the head coach followed through with that duo up top while keeping Olofsson in the top-six skating next to Staal. With Krueger favoring a defensive oriented trio getting third-line minutes, Skinner was relegated to playing fourth-line minutes. In fact the winger went from 15:24 EVTOI (3rd amongst regular Sabres forwards) in 2018-19 to 14:00 EV TOI (5th) last season to skating an average of 12:04 (7th) before he was made a healthy scratch the last three games.

There's a lot to be said about Skinner's penchant for scoring 5v5 prior to Krueger taking the reigns and it's all warranted. From his Calder Trophy-winning rookie season until Krueger came on board, Skinner posted the fifth-best even-strength goal production in the league (191 goals) while skating at least two-and-a-half minutes less than any other player ahead of him. It's a point worth bringing up since the Sabres have struggled mightily this season at 5v5 scoring. They are tied for 26th in the league at 2.47 goals/game, but only half of their 42 goals have come at even strength leaving them at the bottom of the league in even-strength goals (the offense is being carried by the powerplay which presently ranks 1st in the league at a 34.5% efficiency.)

So what gives? With the Sabres in desperate need of 5v5 goals, how did a premier 5v5 goal-scorer like Skinner get in Krueger's doghouse? Well, first off, according to Krueger he doesn't have a doghouse and said he doesn't "know really what that is."

Krueger was pressed hard about the Skinner situation on a morning sports radio talk show and also in a media session prior to their game against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday. "My job, combined with the attitude and the work ethic of a player," he said, "is to work together to find the potential of a player. When Jeff is called upon again, may we drive him closer to his potential working together on that solution." Buffalo lost 4-3 in overtime to the Devils and Krueger was pressed even harder about Skinner on Friday in a post-practice media session. He faced direct questions concerning the thrice-sat winger and, as usual, used generalities and overall concepts when addressing the questions.

Krueger places a high value on play away from the puck and it would seem as if that's what he's been looking for from Skinner. It's a trait the coach has mentioned often while speaking vaguely and generally as to why Skinner dropped down the lineup to an eventual healthy scratch. It's one of the principles Krueger said he's trying to build into the Sabres foundation. "You need to look at everything I speak about over the last year-and-a-half," said the coach while answering what he'd like to see changed in Skinner's game, "the principles we expect everybody to, to do their best at executing it. 

"If principles are off here and there, it's sometimes the problem that a player might have an injury or fatigue or other reasons," he continued, "and sometimes they just don't embrace certain things. And if they do, they'll be rewarded with minutes played, with roles. We are in an environment of accountability and you need to earn your keep here in this group.

"It doesn't apply just to Jeff, it applies to every player on this team." 

It's a pretty clear-cut directive that puts everyone in the same bucket regardless of skill level. It's why players like Kyle Okposo and Tage Thompson continue to get opportunities despite zero goals and two assists in 20 total games while carrying a minus-3 rating each. It's why Olofsson stays on the top line despite contributing only one of his team-leading seven goals (tied with Reinhart) at even strength with a fifth-worst minus-8 rating. And it's why all three are below Skinner in all but one 5v5 on-ice metric for Sabres forwards, according to Natural StatTrick, with two of them (Olofsson and Okposo) getting more offensive-zone faceoff time than Skinner's 43.3%.

That said, what Krueger is demanding may not be a part of Skinner's make up. As mentioned, Skinner scored 191 even-strength points during that eight-year stretch to kick off his career but he also had a downside with a minus-96 rating, which was fourth-worst in the NHL. And despite him averaging close to 29 goals per 82 games for the Carolina Hurricanes in those eight seasons, they never made the playoffs nor did they ever have a positive goal differential. Perhaps this is what caused former Hurricanes GM Ron Francis to pull the trigger on a trade that offered a weak return for Skinner. Perhaps that downside is what Krueger sees in Skinner as opposed to the goal-scoring acumen at the fore of the player's mega-contract.

Perhaps it has become a case of "unstoppable force meet immovable object" or "square peg, round hole" or "two rams butting heads" or "Mexican standoff" or whatever cliché one is inclined to use but regardless, it's a conundrum the team and player find themselves in.

Krueger has his hill to die on and he continued to firmly stick by it yesterday in the media session. Skinner followed him to the podium saying that he's taking it a day at a time and that the just concluded practice he participated in represented "a new day." While Krueger was busy saying that being up in the press box gives a player a different perspective to learn from, Skinner said that after watching a lot of hockey  games and playing in many as well, he "[didn't] think you could learn anything extra from not being [on the ice]," and from his view it's a "rather a vague concept...not a significant part of the situation." And when it came to whether or not he was at odds with the coach over certain principles, he said, "it's better to ask [Krueger] because he's the one that could answer if I'm doing everything to satisfy him. I can't read his mind if he's satisfied. All I know is, for me I try to help win as much as I can...The coach is trying to win games too, I think we can agree on that.

"He has 23 other guys to worry about and a team to coach," said Skinner of Krueger, "I just have to play hockey, that's all I want to do, help my teammates try to win the game. To me it's not relevant whether we agree on everything in our lives, like everything about hockey. It's just human nature. No one agrees on everything, everyone is different, sees the game, sees life through their own lens, makes their own judgements and makes their own decisions. At the end of the day its about winning hockey games.

"I'm just trying to be a part of that."

The Sabres are 6-8-3 on the season (1-1-1 during Skinner's stint in the press box so far) and are tied for 28th in the league standings. Krueger said straight up yesterday that the process he undertook in trying to build a team with a principled foundation was bound to have some rough and rocky patches, but he's stout in his commitment to follow through with his plan, which includes what has turned into a full-blown saga that's garnered national media attention in the hockey world. 

While the coach said he's been able to block out "the noise" this has created in the media and focus on the task at hand, Skinner can take it as it comes. Playing or not, he's still under contract for six more seasons and will be raking in an additional $52 million in salary while his no-movement clause gives him the power to decide if or where he could be traded, if that's even possible considering his salary and the current circumstances. When asked straight-up if he wanted to be traded he flat-out said, "no" while saying that he loves being a Sabre and the city of Buffalo.

With that in mind, based upon his prior melancholy media sessions when this saga took an unsightly turn earlier in the week, it's unlikely Skinner is happy in his present situation. That's a shame because Skinner seems to be a very positive person and is at his best when he's on the ice with a Cheshire grin and the moxie of a confident goal-scorer. 

That's where we are in this saga right now and it's anyone's guess as to how it plays out.