Skinner had probably reached his expiration date but I’m not convinced they’ll replace his goals this year. Maybe they’ll be that much better on D that they don’t have to worry about it but ya gotta score goals to win games
I get what you’re saying but I don’t think losing Skinner will matter much to the overall situation. This is coming from someone who doesn’t hate Skinner and usually defends him on here. But I’m looking at the big picture and how he helps/or doesn’t the team’s play 5v5, on PK and PP. The 3 game states that all contribute to determining if you can outscore your opponents overall.
5v5
Last season was the first time in 12 years they outscored their opponents 5v5 (174 to 159). Thats with with 4 of our top 5 goal scorers from 22-23 (Tage/Skinner/Cozens/VO) having big drop offs in goal production (combined they scored 44 fewer goals). Yet we still managed to be tied for the 12th most GF 5v5 and only 5 fewer than the 6th place team. They only dropped off 23 goals from the prior year (197 to 174) largely due to Peterka's breakout (+13 goals) and found money with Benson’s 10.
They won the 5v5 battle by shaving 45 goals off from what was given up the year before (from 204 to 159). They gave up the 11th fewest goals against. Mostly due to goaltending.
They don’t need to produce offense like two years ago to pull this off again. They just need to get near last season’s goals scored. Which seems like a very repeatable thing to do. I don’t think losing Skinner’s 15 goals from last season will make it much harder.
They also need to keep the goals against around the same. I think focusing on this is the more important task. Addressing team defense and structure/discipline to do just that has been a theme with their coaching hire and offseason moves. Skinner doesn’t help in those areas and it’s probably the main reason he was bought out.
PK
Obviously Skinner doesn’t PK. But I bring it up because last season our 5v5 play and PK weren’t perfect but were doing their jobs to help our chances of “scoring more goals than the opponent”. Our PK improved from being 28th (73% kill rate) two years ago to 13th (79.8%) last year.
PP
This was the shit show that killed our season. We went from 9th best conversion rate (23.4%) two years ago to 28th (16.6%) last season. The 4th most PP minutes (450mins) to the 29th (372mins). The 9th most PP goals (63) to the 30th (37). We couldn’t draw penalties or convert them when we got them. This is a priority to fix and they don’t need Skinner here to do it.
Our overall goal totals last season (all situations)
GF -> 244 or 2.98 GF/gm (23rd)
GA -> 243 or 2.96 GA/gm (11th)
If we had a PP similarly successful as two years ago we would have had an overall top 10 offense. Paired with our 11th fewest goal allowed would put us, at worst, in the thick of a playoff race last and at best we make it.
I laid it out this way because I think you need to look at the big picture to see where losing Skinner impacts us or doesn’t. The most that could be said is we may miss his 5v5 goals. But with all the other things being addressed were he doesn’t help (team defense/PP), I think its hard to argue he’s needed to “outscore our opponents” overall.
