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 Adam
Messages: 7775
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB
6 Cups
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| Rocksteady wrote on Tue, 14 January 2025 10:29 |
So.. is Jeff Skinner trash?
I ask that with all honesty, he's been a top 6 winger all his career and was expected by Jeff Jackson to maintain that level. Except with the Oilers, Jeff Skinner has been a pile of nothing and he's now being scratched and sent to the bottom six.
Speculation on the radio says that McDavid and Draisaitl don't like playing with him and he's been an odd fit for the team.
So... is he trash?
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Nope - not trash.
He didn't get points early, and then he's been busted down the lineup. He's playing just 12 minutes a night and getting weak linemates, and very little powerplay time. We see this all the time when a talented guy playing top line minutes moves teams to a deeper squad where he plays on the third or fourth line. It's inevitable that the production drops - especially if the coach isn't a fan of the player. We even saw this with Teemu Selanne in his brief stint with the Avs, where coach Tony Granato said that if he wanted to play on the top lines he first had to score more from the fourth line. Selanne's 32 points that season was the worst season of his entire career on a PPG basis. Injuries played a role too, but playing limited minutes with scrubs does not put a guy in a position to succeed.
Production is usually correlated to opportunity and Skinner hasn't been the coach's preferred option at any point this year. I don't fully agree with that decision on utilization - If it were me, I think I'd have him playing up in the top-6 over Podkolzin. While I like the effort from Podkolzin, he's not a finished and he's 5-11-16 playing mostly with Draisaitl, compared to Skinner's 7-8-15 playing a minute less a game and mostly with fourth liners.
Even Nugent-Hopkins, stapled to McDavid's side, only has 14 ES points this year, same as Skinner, so is Skinner really struggling? And is he not better used up line-up?
That said, he's a talented guy who has the ability to score at the NHL level and at some point the team is likely to suffer some injuries. He can step up when needed. The last couple of years we've had wingers banged up in the playoffs to the point where they're virtually useless, so having some depth pieces that can contribute will be very valuable.
We can't expect him to produce at a point per game clip in that role, like he did in Buffalo a couple seasons back, but he can still chip in and will be there when called upon.
On the "McD & Drai don't like him" front, I never put any stake in those rumours.
"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks
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