BY: DEREK “THE TOOTH” THOMPSON
The Bills are good. The Sabres are… a group of players banded together for the common cause of winning more games than losing to get to the land many of us under the age of 10 years have ever had a chance to experience, but for some odd reason, we are now a football town?
Not a chance, we bled Blue and Gold well before we put on the Red, White, and Blue war paint in my generation.
Let’s coin the phrase “Win one for Rick!”.. Start the movement to have the guy call the next EA Sports NHL game… Basically, what I am trying to get here is that we need to keep the positivity going for the city. Go Bills needs to turn into Go Sabres, and somehow, we need this to transition to simply “GO BUFFALO” and the players to feel the same love that we adorned to our beloved Bills. One Team, One City, Let’s Go!
With that being said, we do have some water cooler flavor to send your way in regards to the man formally known as Calder Cup winner, garbage goal extraordinaire, can’t hit the net from the slot more than 2 out of 10 times, JEFF SKINNER!
Skinner started the season on the fourth line. But with a recent COVID-19 outbreak that saw nine players added to the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list over the span of seven days that forced the Sabres out of action for two weeks, Skinner finds himself on the first line as the Sabres play host to the New York Islanders tonight.
Buffalo has not played a game since a 5-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Jan. 31. What better way to reintroduce the season with a little Skinner talk.
To me, Skinner is Skinner, and the stats say the same. He is not a 40-goal guy. He is not a dirty sniper. He will not toe drag end-to-end like Connor McJesus, so stop the ridiculous expectations.
Of course, his eight-year contract worth $9 million per season is ridiculous but, in this climate, if he can pot 40-50 points a season and continue to help players increase their production by being simple, well, it is what it is.
What Skinner does is very easy to understand, he commands a double team, and he’s shifty and shady as hell on the ice. You don’t need to see the number 53 to notice Skinner out there. He’s low, knees bent, perfect form, attempting some sort of triple lux figure skating move to get to THAT area that the pucks end up. He weaves in and out of traffic like a mini cooper in The Italian Job.
Why isn’t he scoring, why isn’t he …. Blah, fucking blah… Skinner is like a wide receiver, but he needs a quarterback on his line to feed him a pass. That guy is Eichel.
You cannot deny the chemistry the both of them had back in 2017-18 when Skinner collected 40 goals, 23 assists, and 49 points in 82 games, and Eichel added 25 goals, 39 assists, and 64 points in 67 games.
With all due respect to his fourth-line teammates, Riley Sheahan and Curtis Lazar, Skinner isn’t exactly skating alongside a Rolls Royce or Ferrari. Instead, he’s skating alongside a couple of Toyota Corolla’s, reliable cars but wouldn’t you rather have a luxury car if you had the opportunity?
I get it. Krueger wants to spread out the lines. One line of scoring isn’t going to win you a championship, but how much longer do the Sabres have when it comes to Eichel?
Skinner is a pain in the ass to defend. Just when you think he has run out of real estate on the ice, he mohawk maneuvers himself around a defender, creates space for himself, and is built to bang home a rebound in front of the net.
The wins will come. Let’s stop labeling these lines and talk about the Team. One line doesn’t win a Ship, and that’s a fact. With injuries, an insane amount of young talent in this league, you need to steamroll the opposition with four lines.
But despite unfortunate circumstances, my hope is that with a little help from his quarterback, captain Jack, the Sabres can come out of this COVID-19 hiatus with a little juice and recreate the 2018 Magic, right the ship and jump back into the playoff conversation.
Until then, I’m going to leave you with my wish, get Marc-Andre Fleury. I firmly believe that Fleury is an obscenely positive guy for the locker room and would be a great leader to get in that goalie room.
Peace and Love y’all.
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