Carolina Hurricanes: The Outcome of the Jeff Skinner Trade

Taking a look back at a trade that really divided Carolina Hurricanes fans emotionally, how has the trade impacted all involved?

It’s far from a mystery that emotions can always cloud a person’s judgment. So naturally, objectively analyzing a trade involving a long-tenured fan favorite is not a simple task. But that’s what we’ll dive into now; the aftermath of the Jeff Skinner trade, nearly a year and a half after it happened.

The point of this article is not about who won the trade – because that cannot be determined for years down the road. It’s premature to say one way or another, as Carolina has yet to even use 2 of the 3 draft picks they received from Buffalo in the deal.

We’ll take a look at how Jeff Skinner has adapted in Buffalo, dive into the Carolina Hurricanes’ return on the deal, and how the trade has affected both franchises as a whole since the deal went down.

Jeff Skinner in Buffalo

For the casual observer, people automatically assumed that Buffalo had robbed Carolina blind when the deal went down. How on earth could the Hurricanes move a guy who’d scored 206 goals and was only 26 years of age for a couple of draft picks? The narrative was set from the start.

Little did those people realize that Jeff Skinner was heading into the last year of his deal, and was in line for a massive payday. The Hurricanes, who’d watched Skinner’s maddeningly inconsistent goal-scoring and experienced zero team success during his 8 years with the club, were never going to match his contract demands.

That forced their hand to trade Skinner. The fact that Carolina received just a 2nd, 3rd, and 6th round pick for their most decorated goal scorer of the decade spoke volumes about his value around the league. It’s no question that he’s an elite goal scorer; but his impact starts and ends with that. He’s a one-trick pony, who is notoriously inconsistent at his trick.

As a big fan of Skinner, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised to see Jeff score 36 goals in his first 57 games as a Sabre last season, which had him among the league leaders in goal scoring.

I also wasn’t surprised to see him follow that up with just 1 goal in his following 21 games. Canes fans were accustomed to watching Skinner explode for 10 goals in a 10-game stretch, and follow that up with a 10-game disappearing act.

Regardless though, Skinner recorded his first 40-goal season in the NHL last year with Buffalo, and heading into the summer as an impending unrestricted free agent, Buffalo had the choice of whether to let Skinner walk, or to open their checkbook for their first 40-goal man since Thomas Vanek in 2009. They chose the latter.

Just weeks before Skinner was set to hit the open market, Buffalo awarded him with an 8-year deal worth a total of $72 million, and his $9M cap hit surpasses that of any Carolina Hurricanes player. Interestingly, Sabres GM Jason Botterill sounded unsure if Skinner could replicate his 40-goal pace:

“We understand that Jeff’s goal total will probably fluctuate during his time in Buffalo … But we want to add to our group and not try to have to go out there and try to replace what Jeff Skinner can bring.”

He was bang on. Despite jumping out of the gate on fire, Buffalo has regressed to being well-below the playoff cut, and Jeff Skinner hasn’t contributed much to get them back afloat. He’s got just 11 goals and 19 points in 39 games, and he’s been dealing with an upper-body injury that’s kept him sidelined for their past 10 games.

For Buffalo, their initial return on investment is very lackadaisical. In terms of cap hit, Skinner’s ranks 21st in the entire NHL, but in terms of goal scoring his 11 goals rank tied for 142nd. Considering his role as a sniper, those numbers leave a ton to be desired.

None of that’s to say that Skinner can’t or won’t turn it around at some point, as he’s always been known to get hot and score in bunches, and that will be what the Sabres are counting on moving forward with the next 7 years of his deal.

From Carolina’s perspective of it, there’s no scenario imaginable where they would’ve given Skinner the same contract that he got from Buffalo. And I have to assume that even the biggest Skinner fans like myself would’ve been against it.

Carolina’s Haul

The Canes have done a swell job amassing draft capital over the last few years, which has obviously been a byproduct of their long-time rebuild. In the Skinner deal, they continued that trend, though a lot of fans were kind of let down by the return for a premiere goal scorer like Skinner.

Although you would expect more than a 2nd, 3rd and 6th round pick (we won’t include Cliff Pu as a piece, as he’s been shipped off to Florida) for a guy who could put home 30+ goals a season, Skinner’s value as a tradeable asset had diminished with the Canes. They were not dealing from a position of strength, and it was well known around the league.

Obviously, the news came out after the trade that the relationship between Skinner and the new Canes regime, led by Don Waddell, never manifested and they’d reportedly agreed on Skinner’s impending exit during the season-ending exit interviews after the Canes’ season wrapped up in April 2018.

“[we made the move because] with Jeff becoming an unrestricted free agent next summer, this was the right time for us to move on, and to provide Jeff with a fresh start in Buffalo.” – Don Waddell

So, naturally, with the fractured relationship between the team and Skinner, his impending UFA status and both parties’ desire to part ways, the likelihood of a sizeable haul was always limited, despite Waddell mentioning that the Canes had spoken to every NHL team about Skinner.

So far, their return for their once Calder Trophy winner has yielded mixed results. The only active player that Carolina received in the deal was forward prospect Cliff Pu, who was (PUN WARNING) kind of… crappy. Pu, who was a former 3rd round draft choice by the Sabres, lasted just 44 games with Carolina’s affiliate in Charlotte, where he managed to score just 1 goal and was traded for a minor-leaguer who is no longer with the Canes organization.

Aside from Pu, 2 of the 3 draft picks acquired (the 3rd and 6th rounders) are set for the 2020 draft, so the Carolina Hurricanes have two assets that they can use to either add two more young prospects to the organization, or use the draft capital in a trade, should a worthwhile situation present itself to the club.

The one pick they have used already however, was the 2019 second round draft choice in which they opted to select Russian goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov at 36th overall. Kochetkov seems like a good bet to have NHL success, and is heralded by some as the future of Carolina Hurricanes’ goaltending. I wrote an outlook piece on Kochetkov back in the summer which you can read here.