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There are so many angles from which you can start in evaluating Jeff Skinner for 2013 and at this stage of his career. I think the best place to start is my very direct opinion of Jeff Skinner. First, as a person and hockey professional I think he is exactly what you want. He cares. He wants to win. I think he is willing to do the work and the right things to win. That is important and significant in itself. When Skinner burst on the scene as a boyish looking highlight reel goal scoring teenager, he very quickly vaulted to the level of sports rock star. For many this could be a huge distraction. But in my opinion, Jeff Skinner has remained pretty grounded and focused on doing his job as a hockey player not settling for the easier route of scoring goals here and there, worrying less about his team’s success and mostly riding the rock star status. As I will discuss below, this does not mean he has been entirely successful in terms of his development or for sure that he ever will be. But it does mean that he is pointed in the right direction and has a chance. This combined with a phenomenal talent level is a not a guarantee, but it is a great starting point for developing into a complete NHL player.
So to be clear, I am not predicting a Jeff Skinner demise. I do not think that he must be traded to avoid catastrophe. But I do think he is a strong candidate to be moved to help shore up the defense for a couple reasons. First, he has value. Because he is incredibly talented and has already produced at a young age, he would garner a very good player in return. The Canes are not trying to fill out depth defenseman. The team is trying to land a legitimate top 4 dman and team changer. You don’t get this kind of player for a random collection of mid-round draft picks and a couple marginal players. You have to trade value to get value. Second, given his full NHL star salary rate of nearly $6M/year going 6 years out, I think the risk with Skinner is very high. The health risk with the significant concussion history in only 3 seasons is there and always will be because of his size, history and style of play. In addition, his slow development defensively at least opens the possibility that he will always be a scoring phenom but more in the “scoring specialist” mode than the true 2-way balanced player mode. Awhile back I suggested the possibility of a Skinner for Marc Staal trade. I would not touch Staal until he proves he is healthy vision-wise and can return to top form. But as I start to blog through how to build out a more offense/defense balanced team for 2013-14, Skinner will likely come up again as a possible player to trade to accomplish this. Again it is not because I think that Jeff Skinner must go. It is simply because I think there are top caliber defenseman who might be available who could play a bigger role in returning to the playoffs than Jeff Skinner.
In evaluating Jeff Skinner solely for his performance in the shortened 2013 season, you mostly toss out history and context. Getting straight to it, my assessment reads like this…I give him the same C+ that I gave his line mate Jordan Staal. He gets a B- for scoring, a C- for defense, a C for line chemistry but a B+ for heart and effort especially in the face of having to return from another concussion. He started the season on an offensive tear notching 7 goals and 7 assists in the first 13 games before suffering a concussion and missing about 2 weeks. Note that the Canes were 8-4-1 in these 13 games. Also note that Skinner was even in terms of +/- in those 13 games and that even included a slow minus 4 start in the 1st 2 games that the Canes lost. Upon returning from the concussion, his season gradually unraveled. Initially, his scoring slowed through early March but the team was still holding its own in terms of winning hockey games. Then in the 2nd half of March, the team crashed and Jeff Skinner started mounting regular minuses on his way to finishing near the bottom of the league in plus/minus. Yes, I realize that plus/minus is a much-maligned stat. And yes, I realize that this period also featured struggling goaltending, blue line injuries and troubles and general team demise. But in watching the games, it also featured a good number of little and sometimes big ‘oopses’ from Skinner in terms of sorting things out defensively, winning one-on-one battles, getting pucks out of the defensive zone, etc. When you net it out, I think Skinner was a little light with his 50ish point scoring pace. As an offense-oriented forward, his target should be in the range of 60-70 points (in full 82-game season). More significantly, he was a big negative defensively such that when his scoring dried up, he was minus about every game from that point forward.
So that is a candid and maybe a little unpleasant assessment of 2013 by itself. But for understanding where he is career-wise, I think the context and history are incredibly important. Jeff Skinner was a 20-year-old drafted in the summer of 2010 and playing in only his 3rd NHL season. He is still very early in his development as a player. By comparison Brandon Sutter did not even debut in the NHL until the 3rd season after the draft and played a pretty quiet 50 games in that 3rd year. From Skinner’s draft year, the 3 forwards drafted immediately ahead of him (Ryan Johansen, Nino Niederreiter and Brett Connolly) are clearly trailing Skinner at this point in their development. Even Taylor Hall and especially Tyler Seguin who were labeled as the “can’t misses” from the draft have had their ups and downs and are still growing as players. So to make any kind of final assessment on Jeff Skinner based solely on 2013 is premature. Yes, he has room to improve. That is normal for his age.
Where I think Jeff Skinner is development-wise is this:
1) Offensively, he entered the NHL with a goal scoring and playmaking ability that was (and still is) in the top tier of the entire league. Because of the degree to which he relies on some crazy skating, misdirection, change of direction and other magic tricks, I think he got a bigger boost out of the gate compared to many as a result of defensemen just not knowing what even to try to defend. Though their styles are obviously way different, I think Erik Cole is an interesting comparison. He came into the league with his patented move where he got the puck on the right wing with a head of steam, pulled the puck outside, blew down the wing and then turned at a crazy angle to cut straight toward the net. In his first run through the league, Cole beat everyone with that move. I still remember a regular season game in which he blew by Scott Stevens with that move not once but twice. Having never seen the move or Cole in general, defensemen were regularly surprised by Cole’s straight line speed for his size and then his ability to maintain that speed while cutting at a 60-degree angle even if you leaned on him. But over time, defenseman adjusted to Cole’s speed and began to defend this move better positionally knowing it was coming. Jeff Skinner had not 1 move but rather a he general bag of tricks that could be labeled “unpredictability with what direction he was going next and absolutely no relevance of the current position/direction of his skates in determining this.” So my expectation was that NHL defenseman would adjust to Skinner’s whirly dervish variety of moves making it harder for him to beat people with the puck on his stick. This has happened to some degree, but I would argue that his scoring totals in season 2 and even to some degree season 3 show that Skinner has enough tools in his bag to be at least a mid-50s point producer in the NHL with upside much higher regardless of how many times people have seen him. I think the upside to his offensive production comes as a result of better ability to make line mates better and also enable them to make him better. Right now a high percentage of Skinner’s offense comes from individual plays. There is nothing wrong with this, but I think there is even more to be had as he continues to improve at complementing line mates.
Shorter version: Offensively, Jeff Skinner showed elite scoring ability in his 1st season. While there has been a little bit of a drop-off, he has shown an ability to produce even post NHL defensemen adjustment time.
2) Defensively, Jeff Skinner is still very much a young player with a lot to learn. To put it blatantly, he is below average defensively and has made only marginal progress since his 1st season. Right now, this is what holds him back from being a solid 2nd line forward on a good team versus just a raw scorer whose defensive liability often outweighs what he accomplishes offensively.
3) I think another key evaluation point at this stage of Skinner’s career is his character and motivation. I went into some detail about this above. I think he is pointed in the right direction and has the right mindset, attitude and commitment to helping a team win. I think one of the more defining points of Jeff Skinner’s short career happened this season. In the middle of the team’s train wreck of a March, the team was losing, Jeff Skinner was struggling, his line was struggling, etc. The situation was there for a whimpering period of self-doubt and quiet losing and maybe looking to quietly follow the leadership of the team. Instead, Jeff Skinner put together a couple games where he just kept throwing the puck at the net to the tune of 10, 8 and a couple 6s for shots on goal. Game analysis might suggest that too many were low-quality shots with little chance of scoring which might be true. But more important than play-by-play analysis was the determination and effort that Jeff Skinner showed trying to pull himself and his team out of a nasty funk.
When you rise up as fast as Jeff Skinner did, "the future" becomes much closer to now. On the one hand, you want to be patient with a player that has as much talent as he does and give him time to round out the parts of his game that did not come so naturally. But on the other hand, he just signed for almost $6M/year over 6 years which very clearly puts him in the pay range of the players that must lead and produce for the team to be successful.
Since this blog is already long enough, I will not preempt my blog that sorts out who goes where and what line mates in building a top 9 for next season.
What say you Canes fans and especially Skinner fans? Am I too hard on Jeff Skinner for 2013 figuring his scoring was okay and that he mostly got sucked into a team decline rather than helping cause it? Does he have it in him to be a 60+ point scorer AND also round out his 2-way game?
Next up I will take a shot at most of the rest of the Canes 2013 forwards. The short version is that the lack of performance combined with the desire to get bigger and grittier could see the remaining 6-7 forwards fighting for only a couple spots with the rest to be found outside the current roster.
Go Canes!
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