Buffalo Sabres: Analyzing Jeff Skinner's extension

The Buffalo Sabres have signed star forward Jeff Skinner to an eight-year extension worth $72 million.

Going into this offseason, the Buffalo Sabres had one priority – sign 40-goal scorer Jeff Skinner to an extension. He was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. However, the Sabres and Skinner agreed to an eight-year deal late on Friday night. The deal is for eight years and is worth $72 million.

Additionally, according to CapFriendly, Skinner has a full no-movement clause throughout the entire contract. $15 million of the $72 million due to him is guaranteed, as he has $7.5 million signing bonuses due in 2021 and 2023.

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His $9 million cap hit has a cap hit percentage of 11.32%, which places him 24th among active forwards at the time they signed their respective deals. Skinner’s $9 million cap hit ranks 14th among all forwards.

Salary Breakdown

2019-20: $10 million base salary
2020-21: $10 million base salary
2021-22: $10 million ($7.5 million signing bonus, $2.5 million base salary)
2022-23: $10 million base salary
2023-24: $10 million ($7.5 million signing bonus, $2.5 million base salary)
2024-25: $10 million base salary
2025-26: $7 million base salary
2026-27: $5 million base salary

Analysis

It seems like Skinner has been around forever. But he’s only 27 years old. Skinner’s best years have most likely passed him, but he should remain a productive player throughout most of, if not all of, his current contract.

The Sabres admittedly overpaid for him. According to Evolving Wild’s projections, he should have gotten a shade under $8.5 million annually over eight years. But then again, they didn’t have much of a choice. Either overpay to keep Skinner around or lose him for nothing.

Skinner is objectively one of the NHL’s best goal scorers. He does most of his damage at five-on-five. I don’t like looking at even strength goals because those include four-on-four, three-on-three, and empty net goals. Skinner has 105 five-on-five goals since the start of the 2014-15 season. Here’s a list of the players who have more.

That’s a pretty impressive group to be in. Skinner, though, isn’t much of a power-play goal scorer. The most he’s ever scored in a season is 11. Skinner had eight last season, which is the second-most of his career. He had 16 power play points last season, the third-highest total of his career. We can chalk up his power play issues to his teams rarely having effective power plays.

However, raw totals aren’t always telling. After all, the players who get the most playing time have a bit of an advantage. So let’s look at five-on-five goals per hour. We’ll set a reasonable minimum of 2,500 five-on-five minutes. Skinner ranks 10th with 1.12 per hour.

Furthermore, he’s a better playmaker than he gets credit for. With 1.7 primary points per hour, Skinner ranks 24th out of the 312 forwards with at least 2,500 five-on-five minutes. This places him well inside the 90th percentile of his peers.

Playing with Jack Eichel should be a mutually beneficial scenario. Skinner is unquestionably the best wing he’s played with during his NHL career and Eichel’s the best center Skinner has played with. It’s not a coincidence Eichel put up the best numbers of his career with Skinner flanking him.

The Sabres unquestionably overpaid for Skinner. Nobody’s going to argue that. But Skinner is someone worth overpaying to keep. If you’re going to overpay someone, it might as well be someone as impactful as him.

Concerns

Skinner’s undeniably a two-trick pony. But Skinner’s two tricks happen to be two very good ones – scoring goals and setting up teammates. Like many goal scorers, he is inconsistent. To be fair, pretty much every goal scorer not named Alex Ovechkin suffers from streakiness. And even The Great Eight can be a little bit streaky (just not nearly as streaky as everyone else).

But Skinner’s even more streaky than most goal scorers. Before the All-Star break, he was scoring at a 51.25 goals per 82 games rate (30 goals in 48 games). However, he had just 10 games in 34 games after the All-Star Break, good for a 24.12 goals per 82 games rate. Skinner scored just four goals in his final 24 games, which was a huge reason the Sabres limped down the stretch.

Which player are they going to see more of? Will it be the dominant goal scorer who showed up in the first half? Or will it be the Skinner from the second half who was largely invisible? Scoring gets you paid, but as mentioned earlier, goals tend to come in bunches.

My main concern about Skinner is how invisible he can be if he’s not scoring. This was highlighted during his nearly two-month-long goal-less stretch last season. Skinner also has defensive concerns, as his five-on-five expected goals against per hour leaves a lot to be desired.

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Verdict

The Sabres had to re-sign Skinner and they managed to do it at a fair price. This contract will be judged by how well he ages. It’s a matter of when, not if, this contract will look bad. But if Skinner can help the Sabres get out of their slump, it will be worth it for them.

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Buffalo Sabres: Analyzing Jeff Skinner’s extension

By Dave Stevenson | Jun 8, 2019