Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
53

Jeff Skinner

San Jose Sharks Left Wing

1,078 games and 699 points, and a season in Edmonton that ended with 13 minutes a night and a buyout.

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
2024-25EDM72161329+12600114411.113:00
2025-26 so far
Career1078373326699-12947775047333011.216:43

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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

16 goals and 13 assists in 72 games for Edmonton — 29 points at 13:00 a night, plus-1, with no power-play goals on 144 shots.

It is the least productive full season of his career and the fewest minutes he has played since he was a rookie. Edmonton signed him as a free agent, could not find a line for him, and bought out the contract in the summer.

The Finesse Game

144 attempts and 16 goals at 11.1 per cent. The shot and the release are still genuinely good — he scored 40 goals in 2018-19 and 35 in 2022-23 — and what has gone is everything around it.

13 assists in 72 games. He has never been a passer; the whole value has always been the finishing, and a 40-goal scorer at 13 minutes a night on the fourth line is a player nobody knows how to use.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 200 and he is not in the physical half of the game at all. He does not forecheck with force, he does not win pucks on the wall, and he never has.

26 penalty minutes in 72 games. The defensive detail has been the criticism for fifteen years and it is the reason a club with a good centre depth chart could not fit him in.

The Intangibles

Seventh overall in 2010, a Calder Trophy at 18, 1,078 games and 699 points, and one of the most productive goal-scorers of his generation.

He has played more games without appearing in a playoff series than almost anybody in league history — a streak that ended in Edmonton last spring at 32. He is 33, San Jose signed him in the summer, and on a club with two teenaged centres a finisher is worth trying.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 802 minutes

Expected goals
50.7%
61st pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.7%
71st pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 37 for, 31 against. Expected: 35.2 and 34.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
21st
Numbers
61st

The numbers rank him 40 points above where the report does. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 67 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

2024-25 with EDM · 802 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, 2024-25

The club
EDM took 54.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.7% — 3.6 below the club he did it on.
The role
802 minutes at five-on-five — 36th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Brett Kulak45.7%53.6%57.1%
Darnell Nurse52.4%49.7%53.7%
Adam Henrique46.9%53.1%48.7%

45.7% together, 53.6% for him apart and 57.1% for Kulak apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

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

197 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 16 of them goals. His median goal came from 8 feet. 41% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 14% from beyond forty.