Sharks sign forward Jeff Skinner to one-year contract

The San Jose Sharks have agreed to terms on a one-year contract with unrestricted free agent winger Jeff Skinner, the club announced Friday afternoon.

Skinner, 33, collected 16 goals and 29 points in 72 games with the Edmonton Oilers during the 2024-25 regular season. He was used as a reserve during Edmonton’s run to the 2025 Stanley Cup Final, dressing for only five games and recording a goal and an assist.

According to the Sharks, Skinner’s new contract carries a $3 million cap hit for the 2025-26 season — identical to what he earned with the Oilers in 2024-25.

A first-round pick (No. 7 overall) of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2010, Skinner has played continuously in the NHL ever since he was drafted. The former Kitchener Ranger won the Calder Trophy in 2011 after scoring 31 goals and 63 points in 82 games as an 18-year-old rookie; however, the Hurricanes never once made the playoffs during Skinner’s tenure with the club.

Skinner spent the first eight seasons of his NHL career in Carolina before being traded to the Buffalo Sabres in 2018. The 5’11” winger scored 40 goals in his first year with the Sabres before signing a massive eight-year, $9 million-AAV extension with the team. But Skinner’s performance fluctuated wildly over his next five seasons in Buffalo and the Sabres ultimately elected to buy him out in 2024, at which point he signed with the Oilers as a free agent.

Expectations were high for both Skinner and the Oilers in 2024-25, but neither side truly lived up to them. Skinner never found his footing in the Oilers’ top six and was used sparingly by head coach Kris Knoblauch as the season wore on; the Oilers made it to the Stanley Cup Final for the second consecutive season but put up less of a fight against the Florida Panthers once they got there.

Nevertheless, Skinner finished sixth on the Oilers in goals during the regular season and is the latest member of the team’s supporting cast to depart this offseason, following Corey Perry, Viktor Arvidsson, Connor Brown, and Evander Kane. He’ll now join a Sharks team that boasts one of the most exciting young forward groups in the league — headlined by Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, William Eklund, and Michael Misa — but that still has a lot of growing to do after finishing dead last in the NHL this past season.