Jeff Skinner has three years left on his $9 million-a-year contract that he signed back in 2019. This past season saw the 31-year-old have a down year only notching 46 points in 74 games. While he was third in the team in goals (24) the team itself had a down year offensively.
This bodes the question, what will happen to Jeff Skinner under the new Lindy Ruff era in Buffalo. Will the team keep playing him on the top line? ? Could KevYn Adams afford to buy out Jeff Skinner? Will he be traded?
Let’s look at all of these possibilities and try to plan out what the 2024-25 year will look like for Skinner.
In Ruff we trust
Let’s look at the most likely option for going into next year. Unless the sky begins to fall at the KeyBank Center (I hope not due to them currently working on a new roof), Jeff Skinner will be a part of this team. I believe based on Lindy Ruff’s past coaching decisions, Skinner should be able to find his scoring touch again.
Ruff has mentioned a few times since returning how much this Sabres team reminds him of some of the great teams he’s coached in the past here. We can probably compare Skinner to a guy like Maxim Afinogenov. These two players’ real focus is only on offense and their underlying defensive metrics are not the best.
I won’t sit here and tell you I know how these charts work, but both guys (Skinner especially) were quite bad in their own end but produced offensively. The hope is under Ruff, Skinner can return to his old self.
What a buyout would look like
Listen, I already here you typing that this will never happen and I agree, but crazier things have happened.
If the Sabres decide to move on from Jeff Skinner and buy out his contract, this is how the cap situation would look according to PuckPedia
The Sabres do not need any help in the cap now or in the near future. Buying Skinner out would be a move to open up his spot in the lineup.
The $2.4 million they’d be paying him from 2027-2030 would hurt his franchise so much as they are hopefully making their deep runs in the playoffs. That is the time they need the cap the most, and paying Jeff Skinner then would be the biggest waste.
The Sabres will have to resign Zach Benson, JJ Peterka, Jack Quinn, Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, Bowen Byram, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Devon Levi, and every prospect not on the team before Skinner’s contract expires.
They will need every single dollar to keep these faces around, and losing the money long-term to buy Skinner out now just doesn’t make sense.
Could there be a trade?
I am no GM, but a Jeff Skinner trade would be the Sabres paying a team to take on that bad contract. Last season, only the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks could afford to take on Jeff Skinner’s contract without money coming back or the Sabres retaining any money.
KevYn Adams has shown he will not retain any money on trades right now.
Not to mention Skinner would have to waive his no-move clause in his contract to be traded. If he is going somewhere, it would most likely be somewhere to get him in the playoffs.
But none of us are Jeff Skinner, we don’t know who he would move it for if at all. If he wants to stay in Buffalo he will.
My thoughts
I think the Sabres have to honestly just wait and see how things go under Lindy Ruff. The Sabres are at their best when Jeff Skinner is at his best. If Lindy cannot get Skinner back on track that will not bode well to the rest of his tenure back in Buffalo.
I believe the team will just have to eat these three years of Jeff Skinner’s deal and hope in pray in the man that is Lindy Ruff.