Headlines

Go To MLB Trade Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Jeff Skinner

West Notes: Rossi, Gushchin, Skinner, McQueen

at CDT | by 4 Comments

One of the more prominent remaining restricted free agents is Wild center Marco Rossi.  He has long been in trade speculation given what’s believed to be a significant gap to bridge between the two sides but with a little more than $10MM in cap space per PuckPedia, they have ample room to sign him or match any potential offer sheet.  Without the ability to file for arbitration, Sarah McLellan of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune suggests that Minnesota still holds the hammer in negotiations, especially since they’ve positioned themselves to be able to match an offer sheet, something Edmonton didn’t do last summer when they lost a pair of players to St. Louis.  At this point, a trade looks less and less likely so it feels like a situation where the two sides are going to have to hammer out a contract.  While the team has presented short-term and long-term offers, a shorter-term pact would seemingly make the most sense for Rossi if his camp feels that Minnesota’s offers are too low for a long-term agreement.

More from out West:

  • Sharks RFA winger Daniil Gushchin told Sport24’s Dmitry Yerkalov that he hasn’t decided yet if he’ll re-sign with San Jose or play in Russia next season. The 23-year-old was quite productive in the minors with the Barracuda, tallying 28 goals and 23 assists in 56 games but that performance didn’t give him much of an opportunity with the Sharks as he played in just a dozen games where he had only one assist.  Gushchin stated that he is hoping to make a decision about his playing future by the beginning of August.
  • Still with the Sharks, new winger Jeff Skinner received some trade protection in his contract according to PuckPedia (Twitter link). The 33-year-old has a full no-trade clause through January 30th at which time, the protection drops to just a six-team no-trade clause for the remainder of the season.  Accordingly, while this deal won’t stop Skinner from being a speculative in-season trade candidate, any move is likely to come closer to the trade deadline.  Skinner had 16 goals and 13 assists in 72 games with Edmonton last season.
  • If Roger McQueen doesn’t make the Ducks’ roster in training camp, he told Global News’ Scott Roblin (Twitter link) that he will return to WHL Brandon instead of pursuing NCAA options. McQueen was the tenth pick last month, sliding in the draft after being limited to just 17 regular season games last season due to back troubles but he was quite productive in those outings, picking up 10 goals and 10 assists.  Given that he missed most of the year, it’s not overly surprising that he’d elect to return to junior to get more game action in to try to make up for some lost time.

Jeff Skinner Signs With Sharks

at CDT | by 21 Comments

Free agent winger Jeff Skinner has signed a one-year deal worth $3MM with the Sharks, according to a team press release. He was one of the few of our top 50 unrestricted free agents who remained unsigned heading into the second week of the new league year.

Skinner, 33, has averaged 0.65 points per game for his career and is a skilled shooter, finishing at an 11.2% clip in 1,078 career regular-season games. His lengthy career has been plagued by peaks and valleys that ultimately resulted in the Sabres buying out the final three seasons of his eight-year, $72MM extension last summer.

He quickly landed with the Oilers on an identical contract to this one when the market opened last year, but the fit wasn’t great. He spent most of his time in a bottom-six role, not particularly conducive to his offensive skillset, and turned out just 16 goals and 29 points in 72 games as a result. Those were his lowest offensive totals in three years, accompanied by the lowest deployment of his career at 13 minutes per game.

He’ll hope for better results with the Sharks, who needed another veteran forward for multiple reasons. Not only did they need another body in case they decide fringe youngsters like Collin Graf or Cameron Lund would be better served with AHL time out of the gate, but they needed to add salary to ensure they stay above the cap floor while debating what to do with their logjam of depth defensemen.

Skinner accomplishes both those objectives while hopefully adding an infusion to the league’s worst offense in 2024-25 in expanded minutes. The Sharks averaged 2.54 goals per game last season but now add a six-time 30-goal threat on a virtually zero-risk deal, even if he’s coming off a disappointing campaign in Edmonton.

San Jose hasn’t made many offseason moves at forward, although they did pick up enforcer Ryan Reaves in a trade last night and signed depth pieces Adam Gaudette and Philipp Kurashev in free agency. The bulk of their talent-adding has come on the back end, where they’ve added veterans John Klingberg, Nick Leddy, and Dmitry Orlov via signings and waiver claims.

After their recent moves, the Sharks are now $4.36MM above the $70.6MM lower limit with $20.54MM in cap space, per PuckPedia. While they’ll still lean primarily on youngsters like Macklin Celebrini, William Eklund, and Will Smith for offense, they’ve done a better job this summer of insulating their next wave of players with added quality veteran talent.

Image courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.

Oilers Not Planning To Ask Jeff Skinner To Waive No-Move Clause

at CDT | by 3 Comments

When the Oilers signed Jeff Skinner to a one-year, $3MM contract after being bought out by Buffalo, the move received plenty of praise with Edmonton addressing the need for more scoring depth.  However, things haven’t gone as planned since then.  Not only did his addition squeeze the team’s cap situation which played a role in the successful offer sheets for Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway but Skinner has struggled relative to expectations in 2024-25.

Skinner has been made a healthy scratch six times so far this season, all coming in the six weeks before the 4 Nations break.  When he has played, he hasn’t been the most productive, notching 10 goals and 10 assists in 49 games.  For context, the 32-year-old had managed at least 24 tallies in each of the last three seasons.  Playing time has been harder to come by as well as he’s logging just 12:29 per night, by far the lowest ATOI of his career.

Given that Skinner’s fit hasn’t been the best so far, the fact that Edmonton doesn’t have a lot of cap flexibility, and the fact that their current GM isn’t the player who signed Skinner to this contract, some have wondered if Edmonton might try to cut bait with Skinner.  However, GM Stan Bowman recently told Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic (subscription link) that he doesn’t envision that he will go to the veteran and ask him to waive his no-move clause which would seemingly scuttle any thought of a trade at this time.

Edmonton’s deadline plans will largely revolve around injured winger Evander Kane who has yet to play this season while recovering from multiple surgeries.  At the moment, they project to only have $947K in cap space at the deadline, per PuckPedia, which obviously doesn’t give them much flexibility and puts them in a spot where they’d need to clear out money to make any sort of impactful addition, hence the speculation around Skinner.

But if Kane is unable to return this season, Edmonton would be able to go into LTIR which could free up around $5MM in extra spending room (the exact amount would vary depending on how close to the cap ceiling they could get at the time of placement), thus negating the need to clear out money.  Bowman told Nugent-Bowman that there remains no update on Kane’s status but anticipates that they’ll have at least a bit of a better understanding of his recovery timeline by the time the trade deadline comes around.

For now, at least, the Oilers have to operate with very limited financial flexibility which will make adding anything of consequence at the trade deadline a challenge.  But if they do need to move money out to facilitate a move, it doesn’t appear that Skinner will be the one losing his spot.

Morning Notes: Hughes, Pettersson, Murray, Skinner

at CDT | by 2 Comments

Exactly how much longer the Canucks will remain without stars Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson remains to be seen. The club certainly won’t have their services for this week’s intra-division road trip, though, head coach Rick Tocchet told Jeff Paterson of CanucksArmy.

Pettersson’s return is more imminent than Hughes’, Tocchet said. Pettersson hasn’t been ruled out for Friday’s home game against the Predators, but a return on Monday in Montreal seems more likely, with Tocchet saying Pettersson will likely miss another week. Hughes’ timeline is muddier. After missing Saturday’s overtime loss to the Kraken with an undisclosed injury, he’s been labeled week to week and could likely miss another five games at a minimum.

The latter’s absence is an especially tough one to swallow for the Canucks, who have won one out of their last five games and are already missing their No. 2 defenseman, Filip Hronek, for another few weeks. Hughes has easily been their most valuable player this season, leading the club in scoring with 42 points (8 G, 34 A) in 34 games and ranking second among NHL defensemen in points behind the Avalanche’s Cale Makar. He’s averaging 25:08 per game and posting better offensive and defensive possession metrics at even strength than last season’s Norris Trophy-winning campaign.

Hughes missing action wouldn’t be so awful if Vancouver had their second-best offensive producer this season. But they won’t have Pettersson, who has 10 goals and 28 points through 34 appearances, for the time being, either. Like Hughes, the 26-year-old has only missed one game with an undisclosed injury so far.

More from across the league this morning:

  • The Maple Leafs have continued to shuffle NHL backup options in the absence of emergent No. 1 Anthony Stolarz. Veteran Matt Murray has been returned to AHL Toronto with Dennis Hildeby coming up to take his place for the time being, the team announced. Murray, 30, has allowed seven goals on 58 shots faced in two starts this month while sitting behind Joseph Woll on the depth chart, his first NHL action since the end of the 2022-23 regular season. In a small sample size, that tracks as a career-worst .879 SV% and 3.54 GAA for the two-time Stanley Cup champion. Hildeby’s NHL numbers this season haven’t been any better with a .875 SV% in three starts, but he does have a .916 SV% in his last four minor-league contests. It’s unclear if this is a paper move to extend Murray’s waiver-exempt period or if the Leafs intend on rostering Hildeby for tomorrow’s matinee game against the Islanders.
  • Oilers winger Jeff Skinner sat in the press box while healthy for the first time in a while yesterday as Edmonton was upset 5-3 by the Ducks. It was a foreseeable result, writes Sportsnet’s Mark Spector. Skinner had no points and a -4 rating in his five most recent outings, and the 32-year-old has been an overall disappointment with only six goals and 12 points in 35 games after signing a one-year, $3MM pact with the Oilers following a buyout by the Sabres. He’s now averaging 12:58 per game on the year, the lowest usage of his 15-year NHL career, and his 48.6% shot-attempt share at 5-on-5 is also a career low.

West Notes: Stone, Skinner, Ingram, Daccord, Yager

at CDT | by 6 Comments

The Golden Knights could be getting their top winger back relatively soon.  Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Review-Journal relays (Twitter link) that Mark Stone took part in practice today in a non-contact jersey.  The 32-year-old got off to his best offensive start, recording six goals and 15 assists in the first 13 games of the season before suffering a lower-body injury that has kept him out of the lineup for the last three weeks.  Stone is only on regular injured reserve, not LTIR so he doesn’t have to miss at least 10 games before being activated; he can be re-added to the roster as soon as he gets the green light from team doctors.

More from the Western Conference:

  • The NHL announced that Oilers winger Jeff Skinner has been fined $2K for embellishment. It’s the second time he has been flagged for that this season with the first only drawing a warning.  The 32-year-old has struggled in his first year with Edmonton, notching just four goals and four assists in 24 games while averaging just 13:38 per game, a career-low ATOI.
  • Utah Hockey Club netminder Connor Ingram is not close to returning to the lineup, head coach Andre Tourigny told reporters including Cole Bagley of KSL Sports (Twitter link). The reigning Masterton Trophy winner had a rocky start to his season, posting a 3.61 GAA with a .871 SV%, a 36-point drop in that category compared to 2023-24.  Ingram sustained an upper-body injury last month and was only ruled out for their road trip at that time but clearly, he’ll be out for a while yet.
  • While Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord was a speculative candidate to make Canada’s roster for the 4 Nations Cup since he holds Canadian citizenship, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported over the weekend that this is not the case. Daccord does not have a Canadian passport which is one of the eligibility criteria for the tournament.  However, it’s expected that he will get one in the near future, making him eligible to be named as a replacement should one of the three netminders named on Wednesday get injured leading up to the event.  Regardless of whether he suits up in this event, he remains eligible to play for Canada, the United States, and Switzerland internationally.
  • Jets prospect Brayden Yager is on the move in the WHL. Lethbridge announced that they’ve acquired the center as part of a five-player, six-pick trade with Moose Jaw.  The 19-year-old was drafted 14th overall by Pittsburgh in 2023 and was flipped to Winnipeg in the Rutger McGroarty trade over the offseason.  Yager had 30 points in 21 games prior to the swap and projects to be an impact player for Canada at the upcoming World Juniors.

Atlantic Notes: Skinner, Henrique, Panthers, Burrows, Korpikoski

at CDT | by 5 Comments

Adam Henrique and Jeff Skinner both ended up in Canada in free agency, joining the Oilers on cheap short-term deals. It was a not entirely unexpected reunion for the former, but the latter was a late addition to the UFA market after getting bought out by the Sabres.

But Edmonton wasn’t the only northern club looking to pounce on their services. The Maple Leafs had demonstrated significant interest in both, especially Skinner, TSN’s Chris Johnston said on SDPN’s “The Chris Johnston Show.” He didn’t say how competitive the offers were compared to the $3MM AAV the duo both landed in Edmonton on two-year and one-year deals, respectively.

In talks with the Leafs, Skinner was told he’d be given a chance at top-line minutes alongside Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, per Johnston. That’s similar to the situation he’ll have in Edmonton, where he’s likely to suit up as their second-line left wing alongside Leon Draisaitl with another free-agent addition, Viktor Arvidsson, on his right flank. It projects to be the best group of secondary scorers the Oilers have iced in the Draisaitl/Connor McDavid era.

While Toronto was active on the back end, adding defensemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jani Hakanpää and Chris Tanev, they’ve made no notable changes to a forward group that averaged a horrid 1.57 goals per game against the Bruins in their first-round loss, other than losing Tyler Bertuzzi to the Blackhawks.

Other updates from the Atlantic:

  • Add the Panthers to the list of teams departing the Bally Sports family of regional sports networks. Much like the Coyotes and Golden Knights last season, they’ll be partnering with Scripps Sports to facilitate the local broadcast of their games next season and beyond, per a team announcement yesterday.
  • The Canadiens won’t have Alexandre Burrows back behind the bench as an assistant coach next season, but he’s not departing the organization. He’s instead been assigned to a player development role at his request, VP of hockey operations Jeff Gorton said yesterday. They’ve also added longtime NHLer Lauri Korpikoski as their player development coach in a Europe-based role. Korpikoski last suited up in the NHL for the Blue Jackets in 2017 but was active overseas up until 2022-23.

Oilers Sign Jeff Skinner, Mattias Janmark, Troy Stecher

at CDT | by 8 Comments

6:30 p.m.: Edmonton is also seeing Mattias Janmark return on a three-year, $4.35MM contract, per Seravalli. It’ll cost them $1.45MM against the cap through 2026-27. The Swede is coming off a career-worst year offensively, limited to only four goals and 12 points in 75 games, but was a key part of an Edmonton penalty kill that clicked at 94.3% in the postseason. CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal adds that depth defenseman Troy Stecher is returning on an undisclosed deal. Edmonton later confirmed Stecher’s deal is a two-year, $1.575MM pact ($787.5K cap hit).

5:49 p.m.: The Oilers are expected to add winger Jeff Skinner in free agency, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports. It’s a one-year deal worth $3MM, Seravalli adds.

Skinner, 32, became a UFA after the Sabres bought out the final three seasons of the eight-year, $72MM pact he signed back in 2019. He’s had varying results throughout the contract, which carried a $9MM cap hit and was coming off a middling 24 goals and 46 points in 74 games in 2023-24.

However, he did become one of the higher-ceiling options available on the market upon his buyout. That’s because he’s got a claim to fame that few other UFA wingers have – a 40-goal season under his belt. He’s also only one year removed from a career-high 82 points and +15 rating in 79 games with Buffalo.

And what better way to unlock that potential than putting him into an Oilers top six, potentially on a line centered by Leon Draisaitl and fresh free-agent add Viktor Arvidsson on his right flank? He immediately jumps out as one of the better value signings of the day, especially after outproducing Evander Kane (who he’ll likely challenge for second-line duties) in slightly fewer minutes on a worse team.

Skinner won’t be a major defensive upgrade on whoever he pushes down the lineup. He’s not a terribly physically involved player and has consistently owned poor individual chance-prevention metrics. But he does have a knack for finishing, especially at 5-on-5, helping balance out an Edmonton offense that can occasionally be too power-play reliant.

With Skinner on the books, Edmonton still has roughly $2.75MM in projected cap space remaining, per CapFriendly.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Buffalo Sabres Intend To Buy Out Jeff Skinner

at CDT | by 24 Comments

Chad DeDominicis of Expected Buffalo is reporting that the Buffalo Sabres intend to buy out forward Jeff Skinner. Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported last week that the Sabres were considering a buyout of the final three years on Skinner’s deal, but with the buyout window opening today, all signs point to his time in Buffalo being finished.

Skinner is owed $22MM for the final three seasons of his eight-year $72MM contract and his buyout will be spread out over the next six seasons. The numbers broken down by year will look like this (as per CapFriendly):

  • Year 1 – $1.44MM
  • Year 2 – $4.44MM
  • Year 3 – $6.44MM
  • Year 4 – $2.44MM
  • Year 5 – $2.44MM
  • Year 6 – $2.44MM

Buffalo will save $7.555MM in the first year of the buyout which will give the Sabres $31MM in cap space to play with this summer as they look to get back to the playoffs for the first time in over a decade.

For Skinner, the buyout ends a run in Buffalo that was mired by inconsistent offensive production and poor defensive play. Skinner was acquired by the Sabres back in August 2018 for a package that included a 2019 second-round draft pick, a third-round draft pick in 2020, as well as a sixth-round draft pick in 2020 and Cliff Pu. The trade initially looked like a big win for Buffalo as Skinner posted 40 goals and 23 assists in 82 games. He then signed his massive extension in June 2019 and that’s when the relationship began to sour.

Skinner wasn’t able to maintain his 14.9% shooting percentage from the 2018-19 season and fell on hard times the next two seasons, posting just 21 goals and 16 assists in 112 games. He bounced back in 2022-23, tallying 35 goals and 47 assists for a career-high 82 points in 79 games, however this past season the 32-year-old’s numbers cratered once again as he fell to 24 goals and 22 assists.

Skinner will find work this summer, as there is no shortage of teams looking for scoring and not a ton of it to be found in free agency. Skinner’s defensive work remains an issue and he isn’t much of a puck carrier, but he should be able to latch on with a team on a short-term deal and possibly offer secondary scoring at a reduced price point.

Sabres Considering Buying Out Jeff Skinner

at CDT | by 7 Comments

The Sabres are considering exercising a buyout on the final three seasons of Jeff Skinner’s contract, reports Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Skinner has a full no-move clause and is signed through 2026-27 at a $9MM cap hit.

Skinner’s tenure in Buffalo has been inconsistent, to say the least, but the timing of a potential buyout is puzzling. Now 32, he’s just one year removed from a career-high 47 assists and 82 points that nearly helped propel the Sabres to their first playoff appearance in over a decade. His line with Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch was one of the most productive in the league, with promising defensive results as well.

But that changed this year. Early-season injuries to Thompson seemed to derail everything for Buffalo, and Skinner was no exception. He didn’t have an awful season by any stretch of the imagination, but he did regress to 24 goals and 46 points in 74 games. He averaged 16 minutes per game, slipping into middle-six usage as the trio with Thompson and Tuch was routinely broken up, and his 0.62 points per game were his lowest in three years.

It’s still far and away an improvement from when most considered Skinner’s deal the worst contract in the league. In the 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns, Skinner had just 21 goals and 37 points in 112 games with a -33 rating, bumping him down to fourth-line minutes. His rebound in the later years of his deal has helped repair its value, but he’s still rarely been worth his $9MM cap hit over the life of the deal.

That said, the Sabres are still in a transitional phase between rebuilding and contention. They’re not in a cap crunch – yet – and while improving the roster is a necessary undertaking for general manager Kevyn Adams this summer, it doesn’t require dumping Skinner’s cap hit to do so.

A buyout would be a particularly expensive undertaking in the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons, just as the Sabres are ideally handing out serious cash and spending to the cap. It would cost $1.44MM next season, $4.44MM in 2025-26 and $6.44MM in 2026-27 before a $2.44MM annual cap penalty through 2029-30, per CapFriendly.

Sabres Recall Tyson Jost, Jeff Skinner Injured In Practice

at CDT | by 1 Comment

The Sabres have brought forward Tyson Jost up from AHL Rochester after an extended minor-league stint, per a team announcement Monday. Jost’s recall comes after winger Jeff Skinner departed this morning’s practice with an undisclosed injury that required further imaging, head coach Don Granato said, putting the latter’s availability for their upcoming Florida road trip in doubt.

Buffalo initially acquired Jost, 25, off waivers from the Wild in Nov. 2022. He was good for seven goals and 22 points in 59 games after the change in scenery, the best offensive pace of his seven-year NHL career. While he was not issued a qualifying offer last June, the Sabres brought him back on a one-year, $2MM deal after briefly reaching UFA status on July 1.

Jost, the 10th overall pick in 2016 by the Avalanche, wasn’t able to recapture last year’s form, however. He put up only four points in 29 games to begin the campaign, including a -7 rating, and was waived and assigned to Rochester shortly before the New Year. His production in Rochester hasn’t been as good as hoped for, either, scoring only three times and adding 10 assists for 13 points in 23 games with a +2 rating.

If Skinner cannot play against the Panthers on Tuesday, there’s no guarantee Jost enters the lineup. Victor Olofsson is also rostered as an extra forward, and although he’s struggled with four goals and 12 points in 35 games this year, he has a higher offensive upside. He would be a better short-term replacement for Skinner in extended minutes.

The Sabres have cap space to recall Jost, but they do not have an open roster spot. If imaging determines Skinner will be out for at least seven days, they can move him to injured reserve; if not, defenseman Kale Clague will likely be returned to Rochester with Erik Johnson and Owen Power now healthy on Buffalo’s back end.

Pro Hockey Rumors is not affiliated with National Hockey League, NHL or NHL.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

scroll to top