The San Jose Sharks said the team wanted to add a top-six forward, and it appears that General Manager Mike Grier has found one, albeit a borderline one. The Sharks announced on July 11 that it was signed Jeff Skinner to a one-year deal worth $3 million. Skinner is a 33-year-old forward who scored 29 points (16 G, 13 A) in 72 games with the Edmonton Oilers last season. Skinner has 699 career points (373 G, 326 A) in 1,078 NHL games split between the Carolina Hurricanes, Buffalo Sabres and Oilers.
Skinner played most of last season on the third line with the Oilers, playing alongside players like Adam Henrique, Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark. He often switched off as center with Brown, which may be a role that he resumes with Will Smith on the second line with the Sharks.
What Skinner could bring to the Sharks
While Skinner played on the third line last season, he isn’t too far removed from a solid season where he scored more than a point per game with the Sabres. In 2022-23, Skinner had 82 points in 79 games, including 35 goals. Just two seasons ago, he had 24 goals. In fact, his regularized-adjusted plus-minus chart from Evolving-Hockey shows that he drove offensive play last season and, for whatever reason, simply wasn’t getting the goals that he should have been.
When you look at his expected goals for per 60 minutes (xGF/60) and his Corsi for per 60 (CF/60), you can see that he was creating chances, but they just weren’t going in. On the negative side of things, Skinner was also allowing the other team to create chances in the defensive zone. Despite this, Skinner ended the season with a plus-1 rating, meaning he still outscored his defensive problems.
It’s something that he’s managed to do throughout the last few seasons of his career. Looking at Skinner’s RAPM chart for the 2021-24 seasons, you can see just how impressive he has been offensively, while at the same time, how poor he’s been defensively.
Yet, at 5v5, he’s been a collective minus-1 over that timespan.
Careerwise, he’s a minus-129, but through the years, he’s appeared to have learned from his mistakes and figured out how to take the right offensive risks and limit the defensive liability to his own team.
Conclusion
On another team, Skinner is a third-line center who offers depth scoring, but on the Sharks, he can move up into the second-line center role.
He will likely shift Alex Wennberg down to his proper spot in the lineup and switch off with Smith in the role of second-line center. This could give the Sharks the opportunity to bring Michael Misa along more slowly, if they wish and space out the rookie contracts a little better. This could mean Sam Dickinson and maybe Quentin Musty move up this season and Misa and Igor Chernyshov move up next season.
The one-year deal with Skinner doesn’t handcuff the Sharks and it gives Grier the opportunity to move Skinner for an asset at the deadline. As with the John Klingberg contract, the Sharks have done a good job of acquiring a short-term asset who can mentor the young players, boost his number by playing with young stars and then help the team on his exit.
Time will tell for sure, but this feels like a good move for everyone.
