Why?

Putting 9 million on the 4th line is priceless

I was looking for Skinner when you wrote that lol

He isn't dumb. Just because you disagree with his coaching doesn't mean he's a lunatic. As much as I love Jeff Skinner as a person, he has been really unimpressive in camp so far. I think it's smart that Kruger is sending him the message that if he doesn't perform well, he won't earn a spot in the top 6. It's sad to see Arttu out of the main group but you have to trust that is the best decision for his development.

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Why is Ralph dumb?
The media hated Housley and he was moved out.
Housley improved the teams record by 14 points after losing O'Reilly, Kane and Lehner.

Miller, Jokiharju, Johansson and Vesey are added to the line up with Montour playing for an entire year from Housley's team.
The team winning percentage JUMPS from 0.46% to 0.49%
The PK percentage falls from 80.9% to 74.6%. If the PK had performed as well as it did under Housley, they would have allowed 12 fewer PP goals.
Vesey, Miller, Montour, Sheary, Rodrigues, Okposo, Skinner, Hutton (if Krueger did not know he had problems then that makes him even dumber) all had career worse seasons.

Who in their right mind has Sobotka on the second line?
Who separates Skinner's 40 goals from Eichel? Let's remember Skinner and Olofsson combined only got 34 goals.
Who upsets Pilut so much that he decides to play in Europe (please do not tell me Botterill told Ralph to do this, any coach who lets the GM dictate who to play is dumb, oh that is the title!).

I am sure there are other reasons for thinking Ralph is dumb, but space is limited.

I'm sorry but how do u expect any player to play well when he are literally pairing him with the worst players on the team

That isnt what I said. What I said is you have to play well in order to be a top 6/top 9 winger. I think Ralphs just keeping Skinner humble by teaching him a lesson. Kind of like how Tourigny had Quinn as the extra forward in practice before any of the WJC games to give him a wake-up call or teach him a lesson. Quinn ended up playing every game and was utilized well by the coach. Same sort of thing here imo

Skinner will likely start the year on a line with Dylan Cozens. Is Cozens one of the worst players on the team, or are we overreacting to line combinations from a single practice a full week before the season starts?

Replied to this a day before those came out.

It is an issue when a coach would rather play Cody Eakin on the third line over Jeff Skinner who average 25 to 30 goals a season in his career.

That's true, but the writing was pretty much on the wall for it beforehand. Cozens has been getting time on the second powerplay unit which is a pretty good indicator that they see him in the lineup, and Asplund hasn't been on anything more than a depth line at any point in camp. Couple that with the fact that both Lazar and Okposo were out on that day so things had to be shuffled around in the bottom six, and I don't think there was to read into there.

I'm not poking at you directly, and I like reading your thoughts on here. It was just driving me crazy that I couldn't go anywhere for the past day or two without hearing "they're playing Skinner with THEM??!!".

Skinner is going to play on the 3rd line though... He's with Cozens and either Lazar or Sheahan