After scoring 40 goals in his first season with the Buffalo Sabres and earning a new eight-year contract worth $72 million in the summer of 2019, the 2019-20 season for forward Jeff Skinner was certainly not the campaign that anyone, including himself, wanted to see.
Last season saw Skinner get talked about as one of the worst contract signings of the offseason when he scored just 14 goals and added nine assists for 23 points in 59 games. The 28-year-old not only missed some time during the year due to injury, but at one point did not score a goal for 22 straight games, which was uncharacteristic of the type of player that Skinner is.
Unfortunately for Skinner and the Sabres, their 2019-20 season was cut short on March 12, when the National Hockey League suspended the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the Sabres were not included in the NHL's Return To Play plan over the summer, so he has not been on the ice for a team practice for nearly 10 months.
Skinner was acquired from the Carolina Hurricanes in August of 2018 because he has proven himself to be one of the better goal scorers in the NHL. In his time in Carolina, he managed to score at least 25 goals in four different seasons, three of which he surpassed the 30-goal mark.
With all the time off during the offseason, Skinner wanted to reflect on the year that was and start his preparations for a bounce back campaign in the 2020-21 season.
"I think every summer you go in and you try to evaluate where you're at and how you can get back to baseline after a long season," Skinner said following Saturday's practice at training camp. "This offseason, we had quite a bit of time. So once you get the chance to realize that, you could start to, with an indefinite timeline and a lot of uncertainty, start rebuilding and working on strengths and weaknesses in the gym. How that translates, how you can best translate that to on-ice skills, and fortunately I think in Toronto I had a decent set up and was able to skate quite a bit. I think it's probably my 10th or 11th offseason in the NHL, and every year you try and take what you've learned from the past seasons, what's worked for you, what you may want to tweak and how're your feeling in different situations and different games, how your body broke down and how your body didn't break down. It's a whole bunch of things. I think you have the people you work with in the offseason... it's a team effort to try and get you to your peak come training camp."
Now that Skinner has had all this time to reflect and focus on what has to change in his game going forward, he's excited to get back on the ice as training camp officially opened on Thursday. With that time off, it has also built up the level of anticipation for the upcoming season for the 11-year veteran.
"Obviously there's a lot of negative things in the world right now, a lot of people in some tough situations. It's been tough on everybody," Skinner said. "For us, we're fortunate enough to go out there and back to being with the guys and playing hockey. It's fun. It's exciting to get a fresh start, a new season is coming up. That's always a good feeling, and it causes a lot of excitement. Hockey is usually always fun. When you get to take a lot of time off, it builds that anticipation to when you can get back. We're here now, and it's an exciting time."
Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger is one person who is quite confident that Skinner is capable of a turnaround in his third season in Buffalo. Krueger has talked plenty about his conversations with Skinner during the offseason and how positive the vibes are going into the new year.
Skinner knows that his expectations are set high going into the season, but that's more on himself and not from the conversations that he's had with Krueger during the offseason.
"For me, going into the offseason, I think the expectations all come from myself, and that's the same for any player," Skinner said. "You try to contribute as much as you can to the team's success, and the way you can do that is by working on your game, working on your fitness, working on all your skills and being able to come back and be as physically and mentally prepared to help the team out as much as possible. ... At the moment that we're in right now, it's about moving forward and putting [what we talked about] into action and translating that into wins."
Since entering the NHL in 2010 shortly after he was drafted seventh overall by the Hurricanes, Skinner has yet to make an appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He currently holds the longest stretch of games to start a career in the NHL without playing in the postseason at 720 games.
While his own personal playoff drought looms over his head, Skinner knows that he can't let that eat at him and take away from him helping the team's goal to start the 2020-21 season.
"Every year you want to make the playoffs. As you get older, you're not going to play forever. So the window is closing, hopefully it's still got some room there," Skinner said. "Every season you come in you should be expecting to make the playoffs. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't be playing hockey. I think that's the goal. You do everything you can in the offseason to prepare yourself for that, you come to training camp and come together as a team, everyone starts off with a 0-0 record and try to get off on a good start. I don't know how much more desperate you can be. That's the expectation."
To start the first two practices of training camp, Skinner is getting the chance to skate on the left wing of the team's second line with Sam Reinhart on the right wing, as well as his former teammate in Carolina, Eric Staal. Skinner got the chance to play with Staal in Carolina for parts of six seasons, where he has a lot of familiarity playing alongside him.
It was one of the first moves that new general manager Kevyn Adams made in the offseason, as he acquired Staal from the Minnesota Wild on Sept. 17 for forward Marcus Johansson. Skinner didn't believe, at first, that Staal was coming the Sabres when the move was made, but he knows what a player of his stature can bring to the table in Buffalo.
"I was excited, obviously when the trade happened," Skinner said. "I was visiting my parents, in the backyard, and my dad came out and told me that Eric Staal was on our team. I thought he was joking with me, at first.
"Obviously he's a great player. He's been around a long time, has had a ton of success, and he can still play. I think his intangibles that he brings off the ice, his leadership and those kind of things are something that we can draw off of."
As for Staal, he was surprised by the trade to Buffalo, at first, but knows the type of talent the Sabres have heading into the future. He knows that Skinner is a key piece to the group going forward, and he, too, is confident that the scoring winger can re-gain his touch as the 2020-21 season progresses.
"Jeff hasn't changed a lot since I remember him back in the Carolina days," Staal said. "Like a lot of offensive guys, it's a lot about confidence and feeling good about your game, and then getting opportunities to have success. Within our group and this team, the amount of offensive guys and amount of talent we have, he should get plenty of opportunity and chances to score. When he gets his confidence going, you just know that he's going to score. You can just feel that when he gets that chance, it's going to hit the back of the net. When his confidence is going and he's getting the opportunities and being tenacious around the puck, he's just a natural talent to put the puck in the net. I think he'll be a big part going forward, and I'm excited to see what he can do this year."
As for practice on Saturday, the lines all remained the same from Friday's session to start. That was until winger Victor Olofsson left the ice after crashing into the net and taking the brunt of the impact to his left arm into the goal post.
Following Saturday's session, Krueger did not provide much of an update on Olofsson's status, other than the team is assessing the injury.
Camp invitee Riley Sheahan took Olofsson's place on the right wing of the top line with Taylor Hall and Casey Mittelstadt.
The Sabres will return to practice on Sunday at 10 a.m. EST at KeyBank Center.