Former Oiler Jeff Skinner signs one-year deal with Sharks

The Oilers inked Skinner to a one-year, $3 million contract last summer after the Buffalo Sabres bought out the final three seasons of the eight-year, $72 million deal he had signed with the club back in June of 2019. After spending the first 14 seasons of his NHL career on teams that didn’t make the playoffs, the seventh overall pick from the 2010 draft turned down other offers to join a Stanley Cup contender in Edmonton.

Skinner had averaged 30 goals and 63 points over his last three seasons with Buffalo and it was expected that he would suit up on the wing of either Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. Instead, he mostly played bottom-six minutes and often found himself as a healthy scratch because head coach Kris Knoblauch wasn’t impressed with his two-way play.

Over 72 regular-season games for the Oilers, Skinner scored 16 goals and 29 points, with only two assists coming on the power play. Skinner played 129 even-strength minutes with McDavid and 100 with Draisaitl. His most common even-strength forward linemates were Adam Henrique and either Connor Brown or Mattias Janmark.

Skinner was in the lineup for his NHL playoff debut when the Oilers opened their first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings. Following a 6-5 loss in Game 1, Skinner was scratched and didn’t return until the Western Conference Final against the Dallas Stars. He played in three games in the Stanley Cup Final but didn’t register a point. Over five playoff games, Skinner scored one goal and one assist.

Along with John Klingberg, Dmitry Orlov, and Adam Gaudette, Skinner is a veteran being brought to San Jose to help a young team take a step up in the standings. The Sharks finished the 2024-25 season dead last in the league with a 20-50-12 record, a slight improvement on their 2023-24 record of 19-54-9.

Those terrible seasons have helped the Sharks stockpile a lot of talent at the top of the draft. Macklin Celebrini, the first-overall pick from the 2024 NHL Draft, broke into the league as an 18-year-old and led San Jose with 25 goals and 63 points over 70 games. The team used the second-overall pick in this summer’s draft to select Michael Misa, a forward who scored 134 points in 65 games in the OHL in 2024-25.