EDMONTON — It has become uncomfortable, this whole Jeff Skinner thing here in Edmonton.
The coach, Kris Knoblauch, hems and haws when asked why Skinner isn’t being deployed as the top-six winger he was signed to be. What’s he supposed to say?
Meanwhile, that same coach has made Skinner a healthy scratch for two straight games.
The GM, Stan Bowman, can’t divulge what he really thinks about the signing. Because his boss — team president Jeff Jackson — signed Skinner as a UFA a few weeks before Bowman was hired by the Oilers.
It’s not fair to ask the superstar centres what they think about a $3 million signing who fell out of the top six, then fell out of the bottom six as well. They’re players, not management.
Something else they won’t do, though, is skate up to Knoblauch at a practice and say, “Give me Skinner on my line. I’ll work with him.” Because if Connor McDavid (who prefers Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as his left winger) or Leon Draisaitl (who’ll take Vasily Podkolzin, thank you) did that, it would happen.
So, while Dylan Holloway (15 goals, 32 points, plus-11 for St. Louis) was deemed unaffordable at $2.3 million, Skinner and his $3 million AAV sit in the Oilers press box with his seven goals, 15 points and a team-worst minus-10 at the season’s halfway point.
That may not be completely fair, as Jackson would have spent that $3 million somewhere on July 1. But optics are optics, and these optics stink.
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Late last week, at a morning skate in Pittsburgh, we asked Skinner about reinventing himself as a bottom-six guy after a career as a top-line left winger. To his credit, he has been giving it the ol’ college try, until a bad night against the Penguins got him scratched for the next two games.
“I've been around long enough, been in different situations,” he said. “(He has) seen how other guys have handled it throughout their careers. I signed here to come to a good team, and obviously, if you have a good team, there's a lot more good players.”
After 1,000 regular-season games without a single post-season appearance, Skinner is willing to take a lesser role in Edmonton to be part of a winner, to his credit.
The question is, can he perform in a bottom-six role? He says he can.
“Playing on the third line here, you're going to get the benefit of some matchups. Teams have to be aware of the top two lines we have,” said the 32-year-old. “There's a lot of good players here, a lot of good depth. When you have that, you have a lot of good players up and down your lineup.”
A good first-line player, however, does not always make the transition to being a good third-line player.
Take Corey Perry.
A former 50-goal man and Hart Trophy winner, today Perry is a useful fourth-line right-winger in Edmonton. He makes $1.15 million, is a plus-player and is on pace for 14 goals, all at even strength.
Perry has made the transition that is staring Skinner in the face, from averaging 22-23 minutes per game in his prime in Anaheim, to providing a trusty 11:21 per night this season in Edmonton.
“If you're just starting to go through this stuff, it's hard,” Perry said. “You're used to playing those minutes, to being the first guy over the boards on a power play, or the first guy over the boards when the goalie gets pulled. It's a different circumstance when you get to that age, or you get to that team — whatever it is at that point. It's inevitable.”
Has he talked to Skinner about that?
“No,” said Perry, who preferred not to weigh in on Skinner, but was happy to speak to his own journey. “It's hard to learn, but you have to. You're going to make that change or you're not going to play … in the league much longer. That’s the business of sports.
“I still love playing. That's why I'm still here, and that's why I continue to do the things that keep me in the game.”
Perry’s footspeed, at nearly 40 years old, is slightly more glacial than Skinner’s. But he’s always been greasier and more physical, and Perry was never one to score from a distance or carry the puck up ice.
Skinner’s skating is average at best, he’s never been physical, he’s small and he likes to carry the puck. His teammate Connor Brown gave us a good indication of the difference between playing on the third line with a centre like Adam Henrique, compared to lining up with McDavid.
“When you play with a guy like Connor, he's got the puck all the time. So you want to get to the inside a little bit more,” Brown explained. “If I'm down the lineup, I'm carrying it through the neutral zone a little bit more, whereas (McDavid) obviously has got the puck on the stick through the neutral zone a lot.”
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The mistake here, clearly, is Jackson’s.
He didn’t sign a guy like Perry, who is resigned to grinding out the final years of his career on the fourth line. He signed a player who was promised a shot on Draisaitl’s flank, or McDavid’s. And now that it’s not working, Skinner is asked to make the mid-season adjustment to a role that, frankly, he may not be equipped to execute.
Does he want to adjust? Does he feel like he has to adjust? Does he have the necessary tools to adjust?
“You have to play defence when you're in your own zone, and you have to get the puck if you want to play offence. That's just hockey,” Skinner said. “We have a lot of skill, and a lot of guys who can produce points. That’s a good thing.”
We asked Perry what the biggest difference was for him?
“You’re not going to play 20 minutes,” he laughed. “You just have to have that mindset that you're not ‘The Guy’ anymore, and you have to be okay with that. You still want to be — you never lose that passion, that fire. But…”
Is it an ego thing?
“It could be, if you let that come in,” Perry said. “It’s all mental, for sure. All mental.”
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