{"id":180655,"date":"2026-02-16T22:20:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T22:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180655\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T22:20:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T22:20:25","slug":"san-jose-sharks-place-jeff-skinner-on-waivers-will-terminate-contract-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180655\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks place Jeff Skinner on waivers, will terminate contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN JOSE \u2013 The San Jose Sharks placed veteran forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/01\/25\/san-jose-sharks-jeff-skinner-mike-grier-nhl\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jeff Skinner on unconditional waivers<\/a> for the purpose of mutual contract termination on Monday, a source confirmed, with the two sides agreeing to part ways less than three weeks <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7001824\/2026\/01\/28\/nhl-trade-board-trocheck-hamilton-wright\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">before the NHL trade deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If Skinner is not claimed by another NHL team by Tuesday, he will become an unrestricted free agent able to sign with any club. Skinner would have to be on another team\u2019s roster by <a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/25396347-buy-or-sell-latest-nhl-rumors-3-weeks-2026-trade-deadline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">the March 6 trade deadline<\/a> to be eligible to participate in the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>The Sharks signed Skinner, 33, to a <a href=\"https:\/\/puckpedia.com\/player\/jeff-skinner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">one-year, $3 million contract<\/a> in July, hoping he could become a top-six forward with the team and rekindle some of the scoring touch he had earlier in his lengthy career.<\/p>\n<p>However, Skinner managed just four goals and seven points in his first 26 games with the Sharks, as he missed 10 games from mid-November to early December with a lower-body injury. With other players establishing themselves in the lineup in recent weeks or returning from injury, Skinner had been a healthy scratch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/02\/04\/kiefer-sherwood-san-jose-sharks-colorado-avalanche\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">each of the Sharks\u2019 last 10 games<\/a> before their Olympic break began on Feb. 5.<\/p>\n<p>Skinner had 13 points in 32 games with the Sharks this season, averaging 12:21 in ice time. Drafted seventh overall in 2010, Skinner, now in his 16th NHL season, has 712 points in 1,110 career NHL games.<\/p>\n<p>Asked late last month if he had requested a trade, Skinner said, \u201cI\u2019m aware of the roster situation. I\u2019m aware of the amount of young guys here, and sort of where I fit, obviously, in the big picture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not in control of that. I just come to practice and practice. Things go on like that, it\u2019s between managers or agents. As a player, I just worry about playing or practicing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Skinner still believes he can be a productive NHL player. Before his long string of healthy scratches, Skinner, from Dec. 31 to Jan. 11, had two goals and four assists in six games, with both goals and one assist coming on the power play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the last few games I played, I feel like I was contributing positively to the team,\u201d Skinner said on Jan. 25, \u201cand that was, I don\u2019t know, two weeks ago? I don\u2019t think I forgot how to play. I\u2019m pretty confident in myself to be able to contribute at this level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By parting ways with Skinner, the Sharks will have 22 players on their active roster and 48 NHL contracts on their books, two fewer than the maximum.<\/p>\n<p>The Sharks currently have two players on injured reserve: forwards Ryan Reaves and Ty Dellandrea. Reaves was placed on IR on Feb. 3 with an upper-body ailment and was considered more day-to-day at that time, while Dellandrea, out since early January with a lower-body injury, was considered more week-to-week.<\/p>\n<p>The Sharks resume practice later this week and play their first game after the Olympic break on Feb. 26 against the Calgary Flames, starting a six-game homestand. San Jose (27-24-4) has lost four straight games and entered the break in 11th place in the Western Conference, five points out of a playoff spot.<\/p>\n<p>Four Sharks players, centers Macklin Celebrini (Canada) and Alex Wennberg (Sweden), and forwards Philipp Kurashev (Switzerland) and Pavol Regenda (Slovakia), are still taking part in the Olympics in Milan Cortina. Sweden and Switzerland are in Tuesday\u2019s qualification playoffs, and Canada and Slovakia received byes to Wednesday\u2019s quarterfinals after winning their respective groups. Celebrini is tied for second among all scorers with six points in three games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 The San Jose Sharks placed veteran forward Jeff Skinner on unconditional waivers for the purpose&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,7,401,402,181,404,88,90,89,98,198,403,200,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-180655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-bay-area","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-inside-sports","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-san-jose","15":"tag-san-jose-headlines","16":"tag-san-jose-news","17":"tag-san-jose-sharks","18":"tag-santa-clara-county","19":"tag-sharks-alert","20":"tag-south-bay","21":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}