Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →

53

Jeff Skinner

Edmonton Oilers Left Wing

A thousand games, 357 goals, a career minus-130, and not one playoff appearance.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2010-11CAR82313263+34660221514.416:44
2011-12CAR64202444-8564052109.518:37
2012-13CAR42131124-21265001598.218:28
2013-14CAR71332154-1422110627412.017:12
2014-15CAR77181331-24184022357.716:03
2015-16CAR82282351-23840725810.816:17
2016-17CAR79372663-32870428113.217:44
2017-18CAR82242549-27344022778.716:42
2018-19BUF8240236303680726814.918:31
2019-20BUF5914923-22180011837.616:29
2020-21BUF537714-11141001116.314:31
2021-22BUF80333063-144250426212.617:06
2022-23BUF79354782+153980324214.517:24
2023-24BUF74242246-23480321111.416:00
2024-25 so far
Career1006357313670-13045175046318611.216:59

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

74 games in Buffalo, 24 goals and 22 assists for 46 points, 8 on the power play, 34 penalty minutes, 16:00 a night and minus-2. He took 48.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 965 minutes, the 44th percentile, and his ice went 46-38 against an expectation of 44.51-46.69, all of it with the Sabres.

Eight goals fewer conceded than the chances called for, which is the goaltending behind him rather than anything he did. He arrives in Edmonton at 32 on the cheapest possible answer to a finishing problem.

The Finesse Game

211 shots at a median of 26 feet with 37 per cent from inside 20, converted at 11.4 per cent against a career 11.2. He is a shooter and the release is still quick at 32.

357 career goals in 1,006 games. He is 5-11 and 200 and turns tight in small spaces, which is what has kept him scoring on bad clubs for fourteen years.

The Physical Game

He does not forecheck hard, does not finish checks, and does not win pucks along the wall.

34 penalty minutes in 74 games is the rate of a man who is never anywhere near the trouble. At 5-11 and 200 he is moved off the puck by anybody who wants to.

The Intangibles

Seventh overall in 2010 out of Toronto, a Calder at 18, and 670 points in 1,006 games. His career plus-minus is minus-130 and he has never played a playoff game.

Fourteen seasons in Carolina and Buffalo is the least fortunate draft outcome of his generation. Put beside Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl he will score, because almost anybody does.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 965 minutes

Expected goals
48.8%
45th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.3%
66th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 46 for, 38 against. Expected: 44.5 and 46.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
31st
Numbers
45th

The two rank him within 14 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 316 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 61 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2023-24 with BUF · 965 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2023-24

The club
BUF took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.8% — 0.1 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 965 minutes at five-on-five — 53rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Rasmus Dahlin50.3%47.5%51.8%
Alex Tuch53.3%44.8%48.4%
Tage Thompson51.8%46.8%51.2%

50.3% together, 47.5% for him apart and 51.8% for Dahlin apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

290 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 24 of them goals. His median goal came from 19 feet. 37% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.