There was a tweet yesterday that showed a clip of Skinner jawing at a ref. From that 2 second clip, a podcaster (former ref Tim Peel) and Roenick went into how Skinner is always complaining and the league, including his teammates hate, him, with Peel proclaiming at the end "He was an @hole."
I replied that that's what I want players on other teams to say about players on my team, and in Skinner's case he's at his best when he's agitating.
When people talk about Skinner's value, they talk about how he's a one-way player, he's a goal scorer, he's got unique skating skills, but one thing people forget is he's one of those players that can really get under the skin of the other team and that definitely helps the Sabres in intangible ways (and tangible ways like drawing penalties).
The player that strikes me the same way is Zach Benson. He still takes too many penalties himself, but you see opponents try to put him in his place and he bounces right back up and doesn't back down. It's that same Skinnerish attitude.