This is the Jeff Merrick Show on the SportsNet Radio Network.

Welcome back. It's the Jeff Merrick show.

Matt Marquesian for Jeff. He'll be back.

I think he might be appearing on the show tomorrow.

David Sis is in conversation with him.

So we'll see if we can make that happen.

But before we get to Jeff tomorrow, we've got lots to get to today.

And we'll start here with Lance Lysowski from the Buffalo News.

Lance, how are you today, pal?

Doing great, Matt. How about yourself? I'm good.

I'm still waiting for more news because, you know, hosting the show in what is the off-peak hours.

You know, sometimes it can get a little dicey going, oh, what are we going to talk about?

The Buffalo Sabres, we are waiting news from the Buffalo Sabres as anticipated. It looks like Jeff Skinner is going to get bought out. And when you look at this, how much of this is, I mean, the obvious thing would be, well, they're going to create a ton of cap space, but how much of this is also Lindy Rough coming in and saying that player, not on my team right now. I would rather use that money elsewhere and try and round out the roster.

Is it kind of a combination of both here?

Combination of both, absolutely.

And you look at the way that the Sabres roster is structured.

They have some younger players who, although they're very talented,

they also have some deficiencies in their game in terms of defensive responsibilities, how much of an impact can they make on the forecheck, physicality,

and those are all weaknesses in Jeff Skinner's game. If you're building a team to reach the

playoffs, you can't have too many, I don't want to use the term soft skill, but if you're spending

$9 million on a

player like Jeff Skinner, you need more out of them for where the Sabres are at right now.

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