New Jersey Devils: 3 Ways To Make A Jack Eichel Trade Happen
By Nick Villano
Add Jeff Skinner To The Deal
Jeff Skinner might have the worst contract in hockey. This is a team that’s paying Kyle Okposo $6 million for three more seasons has a worse contract on the books. Skinner signed an eight-year deal that’s paying him $9 million per season. That’s a massive overpay for a player who’s never looked as good as he did when he signed the deal. Honestly, he didn’t even look that good at the end of the season in which he did sign it.
This whole idea came from a Greg Wyshynski tweet where he asked this same question.
Skinner is an untradeable contract. That is until you pair him to Eichel. Here’s the issue. That’s basically asking a team to pay Eichel $19 million per season because Skinner just isn’t bringing much to the table. The Devils couldn’t even afford to make that deal work this season unless the Sabres were willing to take P.K. Subban back in a deal.
However, there are ways the Devils can get creative. The expansion draft is coming up, and the Devils could dangle a 1st-round pick to the Seattle Kraken for them to take the Skinner deal. Is that enough? Who knows. The Patrick Marleau deal got the Carolina Hurricanes a 1st-round pick. So, asking a new team to take an anchor like that for a pick is a harder sell, but they obviously have the space to make it work.
A buyout could happen too. It’s actually not even that bad. The Sabres might buy him out anyway. But, it lasts until 2033. That’s an insane amount of time to just erase north of $2 million from the books. Still, it is better than paying $9 million through 2027.
The Devils could ask the Sabres to take on a little bit of salary in the deal, but that would increase the asset the Sabres ask for in return. If the Skinner deal is a part of the deal, Hischier or anyone established in this deal.
There’s not really a scenario where this works unless the Sabres are that desperate to start over. Trading an asset like Eichel just to get Skinner off the books and then get some assets is a bad look. However, the Sabres have been desperate in the past.