Buffalo Sabres: Revisiting the Jeff Skinner trade 4 years later

On this day 4 years ago, Jeff Skinner became a member of the Buffalo Sabres. Here is a recap of the trade and how it’s affecting both sides.

Where were you when Jeff Skinner was traded to the Buffalo Sabres? I was at dinner with my family and checked Twitter real fast and saw that the Sabres traded for Skinner. On this day in 2018, former Sabres general manager Jason Botterill traded Cliff Pu and 3 draft picks for Skinner.

With it being 4 years to the day of Jeff becoming a Sabre, I thought we could revisit the trade and how both sides are doing because of it. In 2018-19, it looked like the trade was a success. Playing alongside with Jack Eichel, Skinner scored 40 goals and registered 23 assists in 82 games played. Then the contract extension happened.

In June of 2019, Skinner and the Sabres agreed to a 8 year, $72 million contract extension.

It caused a lot of debate amongst not only the Sabres fanbase, but around the league. After that, Ralph Krueger got hired and that’s when the contract was viewed as a bad one. In the time Skinner was playing under Krueger, he scored only 21 goals combined in those 2 years.

Granted, Kreuger was fired later on in the 2020-2021 season. Fast forward to last year, Skinner had a reborn campaign under new Sabres coach Don Granato. In 80 games played. he scored 33 goals and got 30 assists. It was fantastic to see him have success after 2 years of being misused.

So with that being said, the trade itself seems like a good one for the Sabres. Looking back at Skinner’s career, he has always been known as a goal scorer. As long as he’s being used correctly, I still think this trade was a good one. What happens in the future remains unclear but Skinner is only 30 years old and in his prime.

One thing is for sure, he has a good line mates and I believe he will be good for the foreseeable future. All stats are credited to Hockey-Reference.