{"id":481700,"date":"2026-02-17T23:17:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481700\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T23:17:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:17:06","slug":"sharks-jeff-skinner-terminate-contract-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481700\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks, Jeff Skinner Terminate Contract \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 17:\u00a0Skinner cleared unconditional waivers and has had his contract terminated, per Friedman<\/a>. He is now an unrestricted free agent.<\/p>\n

Feb. 16: The Sharks have placed winger\u00a0Jeff Skinner<\/a>\u00a0on unconditional waivers for purposes of contract termination, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet<\/a> reports. He\u2019ll become an unrestricted free agent tomorrow if no one claims the remainder of his existing $3MM cap hit for this season.<\/p>\n

The timing of the maneuver suggests Skinner has tangible interest from at least one other NHL team, but they weren\u2019t interested in acquiring him from the Sharks \u2013 even for future considerations \u2013 at his current cap hit. With San Jose only carrying one salary retention slot until the end of next season, they\u2019ll be picky about how they use it and likely aren\u2019t willing to retain money on the veteran winger to complete a trade.<\/p>\n

As such, he\u2019ll need to walk away from the remainder of his guaranteed $3MM salary for this season and sign on elsewhere for close to, if not at, the league minimum for the stretch run. He signed with the Sharks nearly two weeks into free agency last summer to give them some additional top-nine scoring help, but the fit just hasn\u2019t been there. He\u2019s been limited to six goals and 13 points in 32 appearances and was relegated to the press box for 10 straight games heading into the Olympic break, last suiting up on Jan. 11.<\/p>\n

With\u00a0Michael Misa<\/a>\u00a0being thrust into top-six duties on the other side of the World Juniors and their pickup of\u00a0Kiefer Sherwood<\/a>\u00a0from the Canucks pushing Skinner down the depth chart, there was no longer a home or need for him in a depth scoring role. He finishes his Sharks tenure averaging 12:21 of ice time per game with a -8 rating.<\/p>\n

If a playoff contender is looking for a third-line boost with boatloads of NHL experience, they\u2019ll have a perfect pickup in Skinner. The 2010 seventh overall pick crossed the 1,100-game threshold earlier this season and has averaged 28 goals and 53 points per 82 games for his career, although he\u2019s produced closer to a 30-point pace since the beginning of last season.<\/p>\n

One thing the 5\u201911\u201d winger is light on is postseason experience. He didn\u2019t have any until signing a one-year deal with the Oilers in free agency in 2024, and even then, he appeared in only five games during their run to last year\u2019s Stanley Cup Final, having slipped to a No. 13\/14 forward by the time the playoffs rolled around.<\/p>\n

As for the Sharks, they\u2019ll clear up a bit of cap space heading into the deadline, but more importantly, they\u2019ll shed a contract. They were at the 50-contract limit until Vincent Iorio<\/a>\u00a0got claimed off waivers by the Rangers last month, so that\u2019s been a concern for them from the jump this year. They\u2019ll now have a bit more breathing room with two open slots heading into the deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 17:\u00a0Skinner cleared unconditional waivers and has had his contract terminated, per Friedman. He is now an unrestricted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,163532,4247,764,82,4584,48340],"class_list":["post-481700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jeff-skinner","tag-newsstand","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sports","tag-transactions","tag-waivers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}