You could feel it coming — almost hear it — like a train in the distance, the decision to healthy scratch one of Jeff Jackson’s big free agent signings this past summer. As inevitable as Christmas or New Year's Day, Jeff Skinner’s seat in the Anaheim press box on Sunday had been waiting for him for weeks now.
Head coach Kris Knoblauch finally healthy-scratched one of his boss’s biggest July 1 acquisitions on Sunday, and frankly, it didn’t help his team a lick.
Skinner’s replacement on the fourth line, the trusty Derek Ryan, was minus-2 with zero points and no shots as the Ducks snapped a seven-game losing streak to Edmonton, beating the listless Oilers by a deserving 5-3 score.
“Yeah, not our best,” said Leon Draisaitl, who had two goals for a league-leading 26. “We left off the gas a little bit after the first 10, 13 minutes, and gave them a chance to get back into it.”
Edmonton blew a two-goal lead for the second day in a row in California.
“We had two, two-goal leads,” lamented Knoblauch. “That’s a game where we have to continue playing hard, and I don’t think we did.”
Goalie Calvin Pickard was outstanding in the loss, snapping a personal four-game winning streak, and Connor McDavid (minus-3) had two assists to tie Mark Messier for third on the Oilers all-time points list with 1,034. He and Draisaitl extended their points streaks to 11 games, but that was the only bright spot in a sleepy Oilers effort.
Anaheim was the better team and deserved to win, undoubtedly.
As for Skinner, you knew on Nov. 23 that he was on shaky ground. That was the second game that Edmonton was missing top-six wingers Viktor Arvidsson and Zach Hyman, and in that game against the New York Rangers, Skinner was still utilized as a third-liner.
A $3 million goal-scorer by trade, with two open spots in his top-six, Knoblauch chose not to play Skinner on either of his top two lines.
For the rest of Hyman’s absence Skinner skated on the third line with Adam Henrique and Mattias Janmark, and this three-time 35-goal man hasn’t seen the top-six in Edmonton since. Skinner gets minimal power play time on the second unit, when he is used there at all.
And here’s what is truly damning: If either one of the top centres in Edmonton — McDavid or Draisaitl — really wanted Skinner on their flank, it would happen eventually, if not immediately.
But they don’t, and he isn’t. And as this $3 million pick-up fails in Edmonton — while collecting his buy-out after failing in Buffalo — we can only hypothesize what it was that team president Jeff Jackson thought he was getting on July 1 (three weeks before Stan Bowman was hired as general manager), when everyone in Buffalo told us that Skinner was a spent player.
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As a Sabre, Skinner lost his overtime shifts when his defensive play was deemed to be costing the Sabres games. Then he stopped scoring during regulation, which led to being bought out.
He came to Edmonton on July 1 along with Viktor Arvidsson, seen as the two offensive-minded wingers that Draisaitl had previously lacked. But Skinner didn’t forge any chemistry with Draisaitl, nor McDavid.
He gets credit for digging in as a bottom-six winger here, rather than moping around, but that was never Skinner’s forte nor the plan for him in Edmonton. The Oilers need bigger, more tenacious bottom-six forwards than Skinner could ever be.
What happens next for him — Skinner has a full no-movement clause on his one-year deal — is anyone’s guess. He has played over 1,000 games and never once set foot in an NHL playoff game, a conundrum that was scheduled to end once and for all this season with the Oilers.
But, though the first 36 games, Skinner has not gained Knoblauch’s trust. Or that of the leadership group, like, say, young Vasily Podkolzin has.
When you play with No. 97 or 29, you’d better not be a defensive liability, and Skinner’s work when he does not have the puck doesn’t reach the standard that has been established on a team that aims to win a Stanley Cup this season.
It was supposed to everyone else’s fault that Jeff Skinner has never played in an NHL playoff game.
Here in Edmonton, we’re finding out the error of that narrative.
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