drain water from the skimmer?

Hi. I closed my pool in October. It's an inground pool with a vinyl liner, so I left the water level up and blew the air out of the lines with a shop vac. I used a Gizmo stopper in the skimmer.

I only found out after closing that there are 'aquadors' that close the opening between the skimmer and the pool. At the time I had been told that Gizmos are designed to compress when water in the skimmer freezes, to keep the ice from cracking the plastic of the skimmer. Now, I'm starting to think that perhaps it would be a better idea to close the opening with the skimmer stopper, and vac the water out of the skimmer's basin so as to completely protect it from freezing damage.

I still have time before the real freezing season starts here, and it wouldn't be too much of a pain to reach under the cover and plug up the skimmer's mouth. Would it be worth it to get a skimmer door plug, or am I worrying over nothing?

Why not just pump the water level down below the skimmer ?

Basically because I'd been told that it is a bad idea to drain any water from a pool with a vinyl liner.

when I was younger, my dad drained the water to below the skimmer (same pool), and the liner started pulling away from the pool wall just a couple of years after it was installed (we have a new one now).