TRADE ALERT: Jeff Skinner Has Been Traded To The Buffalo Sabres
I’ll tell you what. There’s nothing quite like a little random Thursday afternoon in the beginning of August trade to get your juices flowing and ready for hockey season to be here. And that’s exactly what we got tonight, boys, as the Carolina Hurricanes have sent Jeff Skinner to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Cliff Pu, a 2nd round pick in 2019 and a 3rd round pick in 2020. We’re doin trade boners.
Skinner has been rumored to be trade bait out of Carolina for a while now. Especially with how the team has decided to sort of blow it up this offseason, it was only a matter of time before he got dealt. He’s entering the final year of his contract at $5.725M and will be a UFA on July 1, 2019. The Hurricanes have a new owner, a new GM, a new head coach, they’ve gotten rid of Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm already this offseason. It looks like they’re going to start building the team around guys like Andrei Svechnikov and Sebastian Aho. So in order to do that, they needed to get at least something in return for Jeff Skinner before they lose him for nothing to Free Agency. With that being said… this is still a goddamn steal for the Sabres.
Cliff Pu, a 2019 2nd rounder, a 2020 3rd and 6th rounder. That’s pocket change for the Buffalo Sabres. They already have three 1st round picks in the 2019 draft. They don’t need that 2nd round pick for shit. And as for 2020? Well the goal here is that the Sabres are finally going to be able to turn their shit around by then and that 3rd round pick is going to be damn near the 100th pick in the draft. And no disrespect to Cliff Pu or anything but it’s not like they are that strapped for young talent that they can’t get rid of a prospect like that. I know that Jeff Skinner has had a bit of an up and down career. And I get that they’re taking a risk on him for a couple of reasons here. Risk #1) will they get 37-goal scoring Jeff Skinner from 2016-17 or will they get 18-goal scoring Jeff Skinner from 2014-15? And Risk #2) will Jeff Skinner decide to stay in Buffalo after the season is over or will he bounce in free agency? Regardless, it’s not like the Sabres gave up way too much for the risks to outweigh the possible reward here so yeah, definitely consider the Buffalo Sabres the winner of this trade.
So now you look at Buffalo heading into the season. Obviously they lost Ryan O’Reilly which is a pretty big hole to fill. But at forward, the Sabres will head into the 2018-19 season with Jack Eichel, Jeff Skinner, Casey Mittelstadt, Sam Reinhart and Tage Thompson who I think will really be able to find his way in Buffalo better than he would in St. Louis. Also something to consider here is that Jack Eichel has switched his number from 15 to 9 this year.
What’s the significance of that? Well I can name you one other player in NHL history who made the switch from #15 to #9 in their career. That man was Maurice “Rocket” Richard. Maybe you’ve heard of him before? I’d say he’s a pretty decent player to model yourself after.
On the blueline you’ve got Rasmus Ristolainen who is one of the better younger defensemen in the league and then of course they picked up Rasmus Dahlin with the #1 overall pick who is going to be one of the best offensive defensemen in this league in no time. The biggest thing holding up the Buffalo Sabres right now, and it’s a pretty big hold up, is the fact that they don’t have goaltending. As soon as they get an actual tendy between the pipes, the Buffalo Sabres will be all the way back. Until then, they’ll just have to try winning games by scores like 6-5 or 8-7 or some shit like that. But when you’ve got Jeff Skinner playing on a wing with Jack Eichel, I’d say that’s not a too unrealistic approach.