Skinner is ours to treasure, at least until this contract is done, maybe longer. Nobody is taking Skinner at 9m, even for a first, second, and undersized forward prospect. Dylan strome is not somebody we need, we already have far too many forwards that don't know/care about defense. Foegele might be a nice depth piece, but that contract is too rich for me.

Skinner's defense is sosososo bad and that contract is going to kill us when we need to re-sign better players. If that deal won't get it done then add another 2nd and a prospect. I don't care. But moving Mitts to wing (which hes better at since he plays along the boards more anyways instead of down the middle) would improve the top 6 drastically.

Strome is on a great $5m deal and has been one of Washington's best players. I think he'd fit at 3C nicely and is within the right age of the team.

Foegele I agree could be a bit expensive but Buffalo always has to overpay a bit to get free agents to sign here.

I'm with you on wanting to get rid of Skinner, I just don't see it happening. Nobody has cap space for a 9 million dollar one dimensional winger. I'd much rather get a two way center, neither Thompson nor cozens are doing much defensively, and strome already has a rep for not being good defensively. We need at least one center that can do that.

If Skinner only had 2 years left on his deal after this season, the Hawks might go for something like this. But that third year left makes it unlikely since Bedard and Korchinski will both be on their 2nd contracts that season. I see both of them going straight to 8 year, big $ contracts, so Hawks will probably want to keep as much cap flexibility as they can for that 26/27 season.

@sabres89
@YeahRighttt
@ZachBensonAt13
You all act as Jeff is Jonathan Huberdeau.
Jeff is on pace to 33 goals this year following seasons with 33 and 35 goals.
He may be over paid by a couple of million but he certainly not untradable, nor do I want to trade him.

Many other NHL forwards have 14 goals YTD are paid nearly the same as he some more some less.

He is a team player:
Watch how he celebrates a goal, he immidiately shows his appreciation to his line mates unlike nearly every one else who goes for skate raising their arms releshing the crowd adulation.
Last year he was suspended for three game sticking up for Anderson who was slashed by Guentzel after the end of game horn blew.
When was the last time you saw a Sabre taking umbridge after a Goalie is slashed?

As for his defense, his line mates, Tuch and Thompson, are worse which makes him look bad.

If you thought it was a poor decision to sign Jeff after a career year, this post does the same with Dickinson who after only 35 games is already enjoying his best season ever by a wide margin.
That offer will not get Strome and why do the Sabres need him with Tage, Dylan and Casey?
Knock out their salaries add an extra $4,000,000 to the ceiling and there is no reason to use assets to move Jeff.

Let me add, why do you all want to trade 13% of the Sabre goals with assets.

Blah , blah, blah, Happy New year, enjoy Skinner.

First, Thompson is not good defensively, nobody would argue that he was, but tuch is. I think tuch, Greenway, and Quinn are probably our 3 most competent defensive forwards. Really wish cozens could be added to that list. As for Skinner celebrating when his teammates score- I mean that's nice, but is he kicking himself when the Sabres get scored on? And scoring 13% of the Sabres goals?- he plays on the first line and gets time on pp1. If you replaced him with any of mittelstadt, Quinn, peterka, or maybe benson, kulich, or savoie- do you think that none of them could score 25 goals while playing better defense? I'm not paying to get him off the team, and pegula certainly isn't retaining to try to move him, but I think reasonable to think that he's part of the problem.

Wow what an amazing fact filled reply.
Actually, I do enjoy Skinner.
He along with Tuch truly enjoy playing in Buffalo for the Sabres. Fair enough, we agree on most topics other than Skinner.
There may be reasons we do not know why Tage and Alex have digressed, but IMO if they were up to last year's output, you and I would not be having this discussion as Skinner would have a positive +/- and more assists than goals.

What I found most offensive was proposing to give up assets to move some one who will score nearly 100 goals over the past three years
That is not good asset management.

Of the six you mentioned, none have scored 30 goals in the AHL, but we can project them to get 25 goals in the NHL.
Kulich and Quinn certainly are expected to top 30 goals, Peterk, Savoie and Benson could possible do it, Casey is more of a playmaker so not likely.
While Granato certainly did well last year with his line up, Casey absolutely rocked between Jeff and Alex, I have to wonder how Casey would do between Jeff and Tage.

IMO one needs to watch Jeff play as he makes many good defensive plays that go unnoticed.
He is like a water bug when he utilizes his figure skating skills.
I know +/- is a flawed metric, but of the three Tage is -9, Alex is -5 and Jeff is -4 (last season Jeff had a team best +15 while Alex was +14 and Tage was +4).

Jeff maybe part of the problem but so are Tage, Alex, Erik, Clirton, Jost, Zemgus, Matthias, Levi, Dylan, Victor, Payton, Granato, Ellis, and Adams.
Dahlin has not performed up to his $11,000,000 extension.
Jeff's goal output is holding steady, while only Casey and Henri are doing measurbly better than last year.

Well that is my tome for the New Year.
So let's agree Jeff's salary is high by about $2,000,000 not likely $3,000,000 and move on.
But let's not presume taking him out of the line up will solve the Sabre problems.

1- Skinner’s deal isn’t gonna prevent us from resigning any of our guys. The Cap is going up significantly over the next few seasons. We’ll be fine

2- being concerned with “improving the top6” shouldn’t be our mindset at all- we have so much offensive talent coming, that we should be looking to build a top9 that’s gonna light up the scoreboard. Skinner helps in doing that. Him & Tage clearly have chemistry. Hell…. whoever Tage gets hurt & Mitts fills in at 1C, that line doesn’t skip a beat.

POINT IS….
Skinner & his goals do help this team
He’s not great defensively, but swapping him for Strome just doesn’t make sense.
If you’re gonna swap out $9mil in Cap….
and spend ALL THOSE ASSETS to do so….
then you’ve gotta bring in a replacement that actually makes us better.

Strome is a fine player- BUT- he doesn’t make us better

Skinner isn’t why we are losing games
He’s flawed defensively & good offensively- and that’s ok
Not every player we trot out there is gonna be well rounded

Not saying we can’t improve on him
But Strome isn’t it
And i don’t see us moving on from Skinner this offseason

Cozens did look pretty good last year though defensively
I wonder if getting back with Peterka & Quinn help him get back to playing good 2way hockey
Rotating linemates hurt him in the 1st half imo

And with Mitts 2way game getting better as well imo,
we should hopefully have better defensive play from our 2C & 3C moving forward

I think the 2way center we look for a for our “defensive line”
And not in our top9
A guy like Sturm has been talked about a lot on here, but there’s some other options that could/should be available at reasonable prices as well

Well stated. And, if I may add:

Since his Calder-winning rookie season in 2010-11, Skinner is 8th-overall in goals scored, 5th-overall in EVG, and 3rd-overall in goals/60 minutes (750 or more games). That includes the two years he spent in Ralph Krueger's Siberian outpost when he managed only 21 goals in 112 games. He also plays a style that's built for longevity and his skill-level should keep him in the 30-goal range for the rest of his contract.

That said, I get the hate, what with our losing franchise and all, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Skinner is a scorer (not bad at distributing either) and when he's locked in he's got a full-blown Cheshire grin and a cocksure attitude. Plus...

we also have this series from last season: https://youtu.be/ZObjTF-Lr1M?si=lBTdyZ6tYUeFIDar

Thank you for reminding me of the "Between two Stalls" episodes.
He was brilliant.
As you correctly pointed out he is a good team mate on and off of the ice.

strome one of 4 untouchable caps players