Pass from Ottawa. A 1st + 3rd is like base compensation to move a contract as bad as Okposo, you aren't getting a valuable 3C back in that deal.

I am not a Buffalo fan but I have recently spent some time looking at this organization. One thing is the need for consistency, second for the billionaires owners wife to stop meddling and firing people. Third to not trade away your 1st round picks. Fourth to stop giving insanely high contracts to players with either issues or declining asset.

The question I ask is can I win in the playoff's with this guy, yes or no. If yes, what does he bring, how does he fit into the puzzle. If no then move him. Something is obviously going on with Skinner for him to go from a major game threat to an obscure 4th liner?

plus to add to this, Skinner comes to Buffalo and puts up 1 season of 40 goals and they give him a $72 million dollar contract? so something is cooking there, for only 1 assist after 10 games?

Simple answer to this: the coach hates Skinner for some reason. After Housely got fired and he got his contract, Krueger has never played Skinner with Eichel like Housley did. Yes I know the argument "He makes 9 mil a year he should produce on his own" but that is just false. You would not play goal scorers like Ovechkin or Laine on the 4th line and hope they produce. No. You play your goal scorers with your best play makers. Krueger just does not like him for some reason and i truly feel bad for Skinner. He is producing chances on the 4th line but has had no puck luck this year. I truly believe if he was on a line with Eichel, he would have 4-5 goals in 10 games this season.

To get to the contract, its Buffalo. They have to overpay free agents long story short. If we let Skinner walk the fan base would have been pissed after his 40 goal season and now they are pissed he makes 9 mil but does not score. If he was with Eichel or even Staal no one would have an issue. the issue is the coach

if you are correct, then fire the coach. You do not put a $72 million dollar man on the 4th line. So either Skinner has personal problems, lost his passion, his focus or as you say it is the coach. I remember one team contacted me to find out why their 2nd round draft pick that showed so much promise was playing so poorly. Seeing that my career and strength is finding out how to get players going, I sat down with the player and long story short, a woman more than twice his age was doing naughty things with him and his focus was no longer on hockey. I obviously will not tell you the player nor the team, but once I filled my report, the team put the player in the house of an older player that had a wife and kids and they kept the woman away from him and within a month his production went back to normal. So there are many factors behind the scenes that most do not take into account.

For example, I knew personally that Ryan O'Reilly wanted out of Buffalo because he told me in my house while my wife cooked him his favorite meal. Not dropping names just saying many factors go into these players.

Agreed coach needs to go. Skinner needs to play with a play maker like Eichel or Staal, not with 2 career 4th liners. He even shelters Dahlin. If we had a coach who let Dahlin run loose wed be seeing highlights from him like we see from Makar and Quinn Hughes every night. Its a shame that management cannot get this team straightened out

ah ha! you may have hit the nail on the head, management! I am told by 3 sources that the owners wife has her hand in everything of the Sabres. Hire the people you want then let them run it. After my contract ended with an OHL team, a Junior A team called asking if I would be the head coach. I looked at the roster and thought this team has the potential to win the RBC (Royal Bank Cup) so I agreed. But one month into the season the GM was calling all the shots. He decided who played on which line, who was on PP and PK etc. I asked him to let me coach or I am gone. He threw his cell phone against the wall and was yelling so much his veins were sticking out of his red face neck. I took my skates off, emptied my locker and said goodbye. Within the next six weeks, 11 players demanded a trade and left. Two of them showed up at my house and slept at my house for three days, saying they were tired of the games. Of the 11 players, 9 of them are still in the AHL, NHL or Europe. So there is so much garbage that goes on behind the scenes it is sad.

Whats going on with Skinner is that he's not that good defensively and he's a second line LW in the mold of a Jason Zucker, and he's a career second line left wing, who got over paid because the team wanted to keep Jack Eichel happy, eventhough his production and scoring fell off drastically after the second hald of 2018-19. His market value was more likely around 5.5-6.5 million and he cashed in.

Having a player like Eichel,a blessing and a curse......personally I did not want to give Skinner that contract, I wanted the Sabres to trade him because he was not worth that contract, but I took a lot of heat for suggesting they trade him at the deadline. Bottom line, I don't even say Kreuger is the problem with Skinner, the problem is Skinner...he is not a 9 million dollar hockey player. Skinner has been a 20-30 goal, 50pt forward his entire career, he is not a difference maker, possession driver that Taylor Hall is. He is also horrible defensively and he is not a fit for Ralph Kreuger's system. Hall is the guy you give that kind of money to, not Skinner.

The problem here goes to one thing, Jason Botterill or the Pegulas. Now Botterill has made some good and bad moves for the Sabres, he has a really hit miss track record as former GM, but the misses are bad. But what i'm not sure about is how much of it was him, and how much of it was the Pegulas? The Pegula's likely wanted Ryan O'Reily traded. To be fair, the people and fans of Buffalo are responsible for that as well because half of the town was convinced that O'Reilly was a cancer because he expressed how tough it was losing. Was Skinner's contract influenced by the Pegula's? It doesn't seem like a move a former cap guy would be in favor of, and im sure you can look at Skinner's track record of inconsistency? And Botterill also swung and missed hard on Casey Mittelstadt.

What the team needs, they need to let the hockey people make the hockey decisions, and Terry Pegula hopefully has learned he cant run the team like a fan, and they need to just accept that they are stuck with Skinner's contract for years unless they eat some salary.

Excellent reply worthy of dissertation on my part. I was surprised when Skinner was given such a big contract and you are correct defensively he is not a stalwart. Jason Botterill. It takes time to be a good GM. Julien Brisebois was taken under the wing of Bob gainey and then Yzerman. Marc bergevin made some bad trades and drafts from 2012 to 2016. Since 2017 he has a much better tract record. So was Jason going to get better in time? perhaps! who knows. I do know from first hand knowledge the the owners wife interferes a lot.

The only area I will disagree with you is about Ryan O'Reilly. I know his grandmother, parents, older brother well. The only one I do not know well is the sister. Ryan stayed at my house and I coached him twice. I have known him since he was sixteen years old. Snook (his childhood nickname) is absolute gold. Hundreds of times he asked me after practice to feed him fifty to 75 pucks to he could work on his one timer, his release, backhand. He wanted out of Buffalo, because he had no idea who was in charge and where the boat was going. Again, I preface the owner and his wife. If he was a "cancer" as you say, why did St Louis name him captain? In the summer I used to have a very large dryland training program with 400 athletes. Players from Manitoba to Newfoundland and Americans attended. My wife who loves to cook, would arrange all the meals along with some of her friends, that we allowed their sons to be in the camps for free in exchange for their help in the kitchen. My wife said Ryan O'Reilly was always very polite and respectful. So, I know that I know Ryan is not a "cancer". TEAM Canada would not keep calling him if he was one!

but the rest of the post, you have some excellent points.

It may have been true that he wanted out, but i was more trying to say, the Sabres had to move him before July 1st if I am not mistaken otherwise they would have been on the hook for his bonus, and I do know that Terry Pegula is a fan, and tends to make decisions and run the team one.

He likey did want out, but half of the fans, and the team likely believed that he was a cancer, which, no I dont believe ever was true, and because of all that was going on around town, and after his infamous comments, I believe (speculation of course) the ownership fast tracked his traded to beat that deadline. Had the Sabres waited or been more patient, they likely could have gotten a better prospect or player in return, but you back yourself into a corner and give yourself no leverage when the entire league knows you are trying to trade him to beat a deadline.

And here is the thing, back when people we're speculating on moving ROR, my question for them was" who was going to log all this minutes and in every situation, it wasn't just about "faceoffs" as was the running joke around here. And instead we ended up rushing Casey Mittelstadt's development. Its a shame that played out the way it did because ROR was a great player and I was excited when we acquired him.

I agree that O'Reilly didn't know who was in charge in the Sabres. The front office and Pegula Sports and Entertainent is known to be a mess, but im sure the Pegula's are also making a lot of hockey decisions that they shoudn't be making which is what made the Kevyn Adams hire interesting. Is he a guy they think they can control, similar to when Ralph Wilson hired Marv Levy to be GM back in 2006 because he wanted to be listened to when he wanted to do stuff like draft a kicker? Or is he a guy that they trust and will listen to if he has input or reservations about a player, hockey decision, or transaction?

excellent observations and input. This is the problem with A type or micro managers, they want a finger in all the pies and you end up with yes men/women instead of people with a brain. I remember one "famous" OHL GM stood at a podium during the annual meet the season ticket olders meeting and he told 500 people that next year we will have a good team. Plus we are bringing in a really tough kid that eats zambonis for breakfast, then he said we have a kid coming from a small town north of Thunder Bay that will light up this league.

I leaned into my wife's ear and told her the first kid won't be here because he got arrested and now has a record and cannot cross the border and the second kid, I spoke to his mother and she is adamant her son will not play in the OHL but is going D1 route. I was right on both. So how the heck did an assistant coach know this and not the GM? I did my homework will he was talking about his golf game or the memorial cup he had one 25 years prior. Roger Neilson was a very good friend of mine and we used to always say if you get the liars and micro managers out of your organization you have a shot at being successful.

If they added Peterka and made their 2022 a 2nd while OTT changed their 4th to a 3rd... I'd do it.
It's only 2 seasons of Okposo's $6M hit, and both of those are $4M in real money.
Be interesting to see if Peterka and Stü can keep their magic going!

@Mwasylko34
@DickFoligno
@Habs4ever

Great conversations.
I was one of the strongest supporters to trade O'Reilly.
As you said Habs4ever he wanted out of Buffalo and led them to last place over all.
The three years he was here the team finished second last in the Atlantic, then last in the Atlantic finally last over all.
St. Louis missed the playoffs by one point the previous year than added O'Reilly, Bozak and Perron.
Let me add, St. Louis was last over all until Binnington joined the team and had a crazy record 24-5-1
Habs4ever are you of Polish decent as I am?

I am not of Polish decent, but love eating their food! LOL