December 28, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

Jeff Skinner had the final three seasons of his eight year, $72 million contract bought out by the Buffalo Sabres this past summer. Last season was Skinner’s 31-year old season. He registered 24 goals and 46 points in 74 games last season. That was a significant drop-off in production from his previous two seasons: 

Skinner scored 25 five-on-five goals in 2022-23 and 2021-22, which put him in a tie for tenth in the league in 2022-23 and a tie for ninth in the league in 2021-22 according to Moneypuck. Last season, Skinner finished in a tie for 76th in the league with fifteen five-on-five goals. That ten goal drop-off was significant!

Sabres GM Kevyn Adams clearly evaluated the situation and decided that Skinner was no longer worth his $9 million AAV after experiencing such a large dip in offensive production in his age 31 season. Adams’ decision to buyout Skinner’s contract allowed Skinner to become an unrestricted free agent.

The Edmonton Oilers were certainly eager to pounce on Skinner when he became available. Episode 38 of The Drop entitled “What Happens in Vegas” shows some of the conversations that Oilers management had at the draft and leading up to free agency. They were careful to avoid having players’ names revealed in the episode as much as possible, but it was clearly evident when the merit of signing Skinner was being discussed.

Oilers CEO and then acting GM Jeff Jackson said that he couldn’t see a better situation for Skinner than the one in Edmonton. He also suggested that Skinner would play with “one of the two best players in the world” with the Oilers. Director of Professional Scouting Warren Rychel was overheard saying that a particular player (obviously Skinner) could lead the league in goals if he was to sign with the Oilers during a phone conversation. Then Oilers AGM Brad Holland talked about Skinner’s elite even strength goal production.

Related: 2024 Oilers Free Agency Wrap

Skinner started the season on a line with Leon Draisaitl and Viktor Arvidsson, and the team lost its first two games. Skinner was elevated to the top line with Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman for the third game of the season, and Skinner scored the team’s only goal in the loss to the Calgary Flames. Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said that Skinner’s best game of the young season was that game against the Flames while addressing the media post-game after beating the Philadelphia Flyers in the team’s next game.

Knoblauch decided to stack McDavid and Draisaitl on the same line for that game against the Flyers, which meant Skinner was demoted to the third line with Adam Henrique and Connor Brown. It’s odd to demote a player after what was his best game of the season at that time. Skinner got an assist in that game, and the Oilers won in overtime. Skinner was on the third line for the next game against the Nashville Predators as well. He scored a goal in an Oilers win.

Skinner had a five-game pointless streak and an eight-game pointless streak earlier this season. Those streaks formed parts of a stretch where he only put up two points in fifteen games. That stretch started after Skinner had been in the bottom six for two games. It went from the team’s sixth game of the season to the twentieth game. 

Related: The Oilers’ offensive drop-off phenomenon

The Oilers went 8-6-1 in that stretch, which was an improvement from the team’s 2-4 start prior to that stretch. Draisaitl only had one point in the first three games of the season (while playing with Skinner), but he flipped a switch and the offence started flowing without Skinner on his line. Those two factors along with Skinner’s poor production kept him in the bottom six.

McDavid was hurt in a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on October 28, and he missed the team’s next three games. Skinner was elevated back into the top six in McDavid’s absence, and he stayed there for a total of eight games (even though McDavid only missed three games).

Skinner got two points in his eight-game stint in the top six from November 4 – 16, and he got outscored 2-7 (22.22%) in those eight games. The table below breaks down Skinner’s expected goals for percentages and actual goal shares with each of the three lines that he was on for those games as derived from Natural Stat Trick. Skinner played with Ryan-Nugent Hopkins and Zach Hyman for the first three games, then McDavid and Hyman for the next three games, and Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin in the final two games.

Linemates	xGF%	GF%	Points
Nugent-Hopkins & Hyman (3 GP)	54.85	40 (2-3)	2
McDavid & Hyman (3 GP)	40.53	0 (0-3)	0
Draisaitl & Podkolzin (2 GP)	55.40	0 (0-1)	0

Aside from an outlier game where his xGF% was 75.72% playing with Nugent-Hopkins and Hyman against the Flames, Skinner’s only two games with an xGF% over 50% in that stretch came while playing with Draisaitl. 

Anyway, Skinner didn’t excel in the top six in multiple line configurations, and he has been stuck in the bottom six ever since. He didn’t get a point in the last six games of that eight game top six experiment, and his pointless streak reached eight games. Since being returned to the bottom six, Skinner has six points in sixteen games. However, Skinner entered the Christmas break on a four-game pointless drought. Skinner had his two lowest ice time games of the season against the Boston Bruins (8:06) and the San Jose Sharks (7:53) last week.

Skinner ranks eighth among Oilers forwards in ice time per game according to Hockey Reference. Players have to earn their ice time, but coaches are ultimately the ones that dictate how ice time is distributed. Coaches also have to make decisions on how to utilize players in the lineup. 

Skinner hasn’t exactly made it impossible to keep him out of the top six. I don’t think that anyone would argue that more is needed from the player. However, Knoblauch’s attitude towards the idea of signing Skinner as depicted in that episode of The Oil Drop suggests that the coach doesn’t like what the player brings to the table.

Knoblauch was shown rolling his eyes and biting his lip while Holland was talking about Skinner’s elite even strength goal production.

Knoblauch started a conversation about a particular winger’s defensive numbers. Holland shared a hypothesis about that player’s defensive metrics being as poor as they were because the team he played on was “getting hemorrhaged”. Senior Director of Data and Analytics Michael Parkatti responded to Holland by explaining when someone plays big minutes, it’s a sign of confidence in the numbers that are being shown in their data models. 

They were referring to a winger that they were considering signing that played big minutes on a bad team last season. That was obviously Skinner. The fact that Knoblauch initiated that conversation suggested that he had concerns about Skinner’s defensive game. Parkatti clearly felt that Skinner’s time on ice in Buffalo last season was enough of a sample size for the defensive metrics they were seeing to be an accurate representation of Skinner’s defensive game.

Knoblauch also made a comment that “If we were to miss out on Skinner, then I like (insert bleeped out player’s name here)”. That comment implied that he would not have been upset to have missed out on Skinner. 

Related: The summer of discount shopping for the Oilers

The head coach hasn’t said anything outwardly negative about Skinner in the media at all this season, but it’s plainly evident that Knoblauch doesn’t trust Skinner. You can see it in Skinner’s deployment.

Management signed Skinner with the expectation that he would play on a scoring line with McDavid or Draisaitl, and that Skinner would excel in that role. The team lost their first three games with Skinner in the top six, and they scored three goals in those three games. Skinner was in on two of those three goals. The coach made a quick decision to take Skinner out of the top six despite his being involved in two thirds of the team’s offence at that time.

I don’t think that Skinner was the reason that the team came out of the gates cold offensively. The trio of Skinner, Draisaitl, and Arvidsson has a 64.9% expected goals percentage and a 91.67% high danger chances for percentage (11-1) in 34:28 this season. They were outscored 0-1 in that time. That line wasn’t leaking chances defensively, and they were dominating in every underlying statistic. The goals would have come for them, just like we understood that the goals would come for the team as a whole when we looked at their underlying numbers in the early part of the season.

Let’s look at some numbers that might shed some light on the reality of Skinner’s performance this season. Skinner got 24 goals last season. Sixteen of them were scored at five-on-five. This season, he’s got six even strength goals through 34 games, which paces out to 14.47 even strength goals in 82 games. He really isn’t that far behind his even strength scoring pace from last season (17.73 over 82 games).

Skinner scored fifteen five-on-five goals last season (plus one goal at four-on-four). He scored five-on-five goals at a rate of 0.95 goals/60 minutes of ice time. That is down to 0.73 goals/60 this season. If Skinner’s goals/60 rate from last season is applied to this season’s total five-on-five ice time through 34 games, Skinner would have 6.48 five-on-five goals. He currently has five five-on-five goals, so he’s basically a goal and a half behind last season’s goal scoring rate at this point in the season.

Skinner’s five-on-five assists/60 rate is down by 0.34 from last season. If Skinner’s assists/60 rate from last season is applied to this season’s total ice time, Skinner would have 7.3 five-on-five assists. He’s got five five-on-five assists, so he’s 2.3 assists behind last season’s pace.

You can’t convince me that Skinner wouldn’t have at least 2.61 more five-on-five points if he had been playing on a line with McDavid or Draisaitl for the entire season.

We also have to remember that Skinner played on the top powerplay unit in Buffalo. He got eight powerplay goals and four powerplay assists last season. Those 12 points counted for 26% of Skinner’s total offence last season. 25.6% of his offence came on the powerplay in 2022-23, and 17.4% of his offence came on the powerplay in 2021-22. He plays on the second powerplay unit in Edmonton, and the second unit barely plays. We should expect Skinner’s powerplay production to be essentially non-existent as long as he’s an Oiler. That will impact his point totals significantly. One of Skinner’s twelve points this season has come on the powerplay, which is 8.33% of his total offence.

It was misguided for Oilers management to think that Skinner would regain his old form from 2021-22 and 2022-23 at the age of 32 simply because of an opportunity to play with McDavid and Draisaitl, but I don’t think it was unreasonable to think that he could increase his production from the 2023-24 season in Oilers colours given the opportunity to play with McDavid or Draisaitl.

We know what Skinner is at this point in his career. Skinner is a goal scorer. He’s got 363 goals in his career, compared to just 319 assists. He’s got a fantastic set of mitts on him. Skinner has a figure skating background, which means that his edge work is great. He’s agile, he’s quick, and he has great offensive instincts. Skinner has never been a physical player, so expecting him to crash and bang is unrealistic.

Is that the type of player that should be utilized on the fourth line? Absolutely not.

Skinner was essentially replaced in the top six by Podkolzin, who has eleven five-on-five points compared to Skinner’s ten. Podkolzin has played 212:24 more minutes with Draisaitl this season than Skinner has, and Podkolzin has only outproduced Skinner by one five-on-five point. Nugent-Hopkins is also having himself a struggle this season. He’s scoring 0.27 goals/60 and getting 0.68 assists/60 at five-on-five this season. Both of those are lower rates than Skinner’s, yet Nugent-Hopkins has been a permanent fixture in the top six all season long.

The big knock against Skinner is that his five-on-five goal share is a staggering 36.36% (12-21). His xGF% is 46.96%. That isn’t good, but it doesn’t explain the super low goal share. The team’s save percentage with him on the ice is 90.54%, so the goaltending isn’t letting him down. The team’s on ice shooting percentage with Skinner on the ice at five-on-five is only 5.91%, which is incredibly low. Skinner is getting more of the high danger scoring chances (50.68%), but his high danger goal share is only 40% (8-12). According to PuckIQ, his Dangerous Fenwick For percentage is at 49.9%, which suggests that he shouldn’t be getting caved in. The low on-ice shooting percentage, his HDCF%, and his DFF% combined with his low goal share suggest that the offensive chemistry just isn’t there with his linemates. It’s either that or age has totally caught up to him. That can’t be changed, but his linemates can be changed.

His goal share against elite competition is 54.5% (6-5). It’s 30% (3-7) against mid level competition, and 25% (3-9) against low level competition. It’s clear that Skinner has struggled in a checking line role. We shouldn’t be surprised at that given that isn’t his skill set.

Skinner’s five-on-five goal share was actually even through November 3. Since November 4, Skinner’s five-on-five goal share has been 6-15 (28.57%). The Oilers played the New Jersey Devils on November 4. They lost 3-0. Skinner was on the ice for two of the Devils’ goals. Skinner’s line had two golden opportunities to score in that game, but they were denied by Jake Allen. Skinner hasn’t been an effective player since that game.

I honestly think that the only way the Oilers will get the most out of Skinner is to play him on a scoring line with McDavid or Draisaitl. You want to see players earn their top six minutes, but the reality is that Skinner is scoring five-on-five goals at a higher rate than any other Oilers left winger this season. His goal share and his offensive production would increase while playing with a superstar consistently because his skill set is a match for a scoring line.

Skinner and McDavid didn’t work together based on the three games they played together earlier in the season, so the logical move is to put him with Draisaitl. Skinner’s xGF% with Draisaitl overall this season is 58.04%, but their goal share is only 25% (1-3). That goal share can’t stay that low for long at that expected goal share pace.

That’s what I feel should happen, but that’s not likely to happen given Knoblauch’s obvious preference to play other players over Skinner. Skinner signed in Edmonton because of the opportunity to play in the playoffs and to play with McDavid and Draisaitl. He has a no-trade clause, so the situation would have to get pretty ugly for Skinner to waive that clause and to have Oilers GM Stan Bowman facilitate a trade for him, especially because we know that Jackson was an advocate of Skinner’s this summer.

So, Knoblauch is left trying to get the most out of an asset that he clearly doesn’t trust. Skinner is 32 years old and declining, but I can tell you with certainty that Skinner won’t produce while playing with less skilled linemates, and he certainly won’t produce while sitting on the bench. I believe in putting players in position to succeed, and that isn’t happening with Skinner right now. He’s being put in a position to fail, and he’s failing.