I had a chance to talk with a former Sabres GM and at the beginning of season he said $9,000,000 was the magic figure. But here my friends is the bottom line, he provided 18% of the Sabre goals last year same as Ovechkin but less than Draisaitl 21%. If the Sabres do not sign him, then I think we are going to go to another rebuild stage and go into a full take on contracts for picks mode and suffer for another 3 year. I like many of the prospects but none of them are projected to provide anything close to that. As many of you has stated, Buffalo would need to over pay for a UFA and that is simply not going to happen. If it has to be $9,000,000 I think the Sabres need to do it. In 4 years, that will appear to be a bargain.
Quoting: TanSor
I mean, he did score 40 goals... It's a lot of money but not many players can score 40 goals in this league. I'd say it's an overpayment by about $1.5M per year, but Buffalo would be crazy to let him walk.
Quoting: linehan10
they gotta keep him. cant keep taking one step forward then two steps backwards
Quoting: palhal
Well teams "should let him walk" if the team thinks they can spend 9m better. Not saying the Sabres can find better value elsewhere but time will tell if it's good signing.
Quoting: Zwui21
I get it and I kinda agree. But man, this guy have never scored more than 63 points in his 9 year NHL career. This season he got 40 goals (first time) but if you look back, in two of the three seasons prior to this one he didn't even crack 30.
Risky risky move for Buffalo IMO, and if Skinner gets 9M... Jesus Christ the prices of UFAs are gonna get crazy. Duchene and Panarin are definitely smiling
Quoting: MelonVK
Yeah.. I just wouldn't pay that. The downgrade to guys like Nyquist/Zuccarello etc isn't really 3+ million in my opinion
Quoting: BurgerBoss
$9M oof that's too much. I could understand $8M or $8,5M, but anything over that is just ridiculous...
Quoting: mhockey91
Agreed. Mark stone resigned to 9.5 million. He’s nowhere near mark stone. Big overpayment by Botterel
Quoting: Cheesesauce
It's really overpayment, but we have no choice, we can't just let him go after he's so perfectly fit into our team. If you look at our list, Skinner's departure will be disastrous, because I don't believe in our GM and that he will be able to find an adequate replacement Skinner.
Quoting: littlejerryseinfeld
It's a slight overpay but hes a UFA so what are you gonna do.
Quoting: ashleyschaeffer
losing teams have to pay a premium. winning teams can convince people to sign at a slight discount or if there's no state income tax. new york has an fairly high state income tax rate at the top earning level. this is the cost of locking up skinner before free agency and hopefully help entice some other free agents once he's in the fold. you have to take the chance that he can score at a high clip along side eichel for the next 5 years and live the with the end of the contract with a cap that seems to rise at a decent rate.