DeCock did a bit of of a career retrospective on Skinner here:https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/article215946110.html
I figured to write up my own take as a way of putting a bow on Skinner's time as a Hurricane. As you'll probably recall from my #freeskinner take in recent years, this will NOT be kind towards the club. If you don't want to hear any of that, well you've been forewarned.
Let's all go back to the start of the 2010-11 season ("please, could we?" I hear you) when a teenage scoring sensation, with ruddy cheeks and a ready smile forced his way onto the roster of what was still a decent Carolina Hurricanes team. A wizened Paul Maurice 2.0 was behind the bench and the Canes were only one season removed from having gone to the Eastern Finals. The previous season had been a frustrating stew of injuries and decline that saw the agonizing last hurrah for Captain Rod Brind'Amour, a 40 game season for Erik Cole and a frustrating 30 appearance season for Cam Ward. The Canes decided to go for offense in the first round of the draft that summer and found a pure goal scoring winger in Jeff Skinner, who had just managed a remarkable 20 goals in 20 playoff games for Kitchener in the OHL. He was confident, he was brash, he was a whirling dervish ... and on a team that was looking a bit old and stodgy he was a breath of fresh air. Carolina's goal totals had declined precipitously since the heights of 2006 and the kid made the final roster out of camp.
Maurice had been around this block before and knew better than to put too much responsibility on a teenager, so he carefully guarded Skinner's ice time. He was used in a support role in 5 on 5 situations, and Maurice tried to manage his shifts to keep him away from checking lines and thugs. In short, he flew .... right from the start. The kid was dynamic and better yet, he was ruthlessly efficient. He buried the puck from all angles and showed a real knack for finding rebounds in traffic. Carolina was hosting the All Star Game that year and at the break the Canes were sitting in pretty good shape. Eric Staal was bubbling along, and Cole was having a solid season in a bounce back year. Tuomo Ruutu was having perhaps his best year as a Hurricane and Jussi Jokinen was setting all of them up. On D, Joni Pitkanen and Tim Gleason were holding down the back end and Ward was playing well enough be named to the All Star team ... along with Staal and, almost shockingly, Jeff Skinner. Not that he wasn't on fire, because he was, but the NHL just didn't name many rookies to All Star teams back then. Clearly it was a bone thrown to the host city, but honestly Skinner deserved it more than Ward did. Sadly, after the high water mark in February the wheels fell off for the Canes. Even Skinner's 31 goal output wasn't enough to elevate their offensive production to where it needed to be. They missed the playoffs and went into another off season feeling like they were "that close" to being good.
Oh, if we had only known. The .555 winning percentage from that season was by far the best the Canes would muster for the rest of Skinner's time in Raleigh as bad coaching, poor roster building and concussions conspired to dim that 100 watt smile and wear down one of the most exuberant players I can ever recall watching in person. Skinner suffered his first concussion in 2011-12 and the team discovered that he, like seemingly a million other wingers, was ill suited to play with flagship center Eric Staal. The offense bogged down as Skinner's spark was dimmed and Maurice paid the professional price. Never much of an offensive strategist, Mo 2.0 gave way to the Captain Kirk era as Kirk Muller was hired; a decision that still puzzles me. He was clearly hired for the classic reasons (fix the power play! ... Staal hates Maurice) but was immature, inexperienced and just flat out the worst man manager possible. And with the leadership having transitioned away from the likes of Brind'Amour, Francis, Wesley, A Ward and Hedican to the likes of the Staal brothers, Pitkanen and Gleason ... the guys weren't capable of dragging themselves back from the brink the way the Maurice 1.0 teams did in the late 90s and early 2000s. Skinner's concussions and his lack of ability and interest in defensive responsibility meant that he would never again find a Hurricanes coach that was comfortable with him again. After the way Maurice was so visibly uncomfortable early in his career with such players as Sami Kapanen and Jeff O'Neill it's ironic that he was Skinner's only advocate as a coach. Frankly, it breaks my heart for the kid.
For me, that was the beginning of the end for Skinner. The point at which things changed. Muller's idiocy gave way to Bill Peters's stubbornness. Eric Staal was joined by and then gave way to Jordan Staal. Sebastian Aho emerged as the face of the team up front. Yet somehow Skinner still never "fit" on a first line; never seemed to be trusted as a "go-to guy" by the organization. Yeah, they gave him an A to wear on his sweater, but even that was couched in some ridiculous home and away rotation with some other guy. He had other concussion setbacks, but he also had those patented Skinner hot streaks when the goals came in HUGE bunches. He topped 30 goals twice more in the next 7 years and popped for more than 25 on two other occasions ... largely on teams that were fairly inept on offense. Yet through it all he found himself used in support roles, often with middling line mates, often on the second power play unit and growing visibly less joyful about it all. For the team, the losing continued like the NC heat in August. Oppressive. Ever present. Draining.
So, we come to the current time. Skinner made it fairly clear that he was going to be moving on when he became a free agent after the 2018-19 season and any Canes fan who feels cheated by him for that is being ridiculous. The man has endured enough on your behalf. The Hurricanes apparently decided that he had to go this summer for "culture" reasons and took the first port in a storm by offloading him like so much scuffed up luggage ... to Buffalo ... for next to nothing in return. They robbed him of even the dignity of bothering to get a good prospect for him and told the world that everyone would be better off this way. He'll be close to his home in Ontario and I'm sure his family will enjoy that. I hope he scores 50 this year. Free Skinner. Go on, son ... be free.
I figured to write up my own take as a way of putting a bow on Skinner's time as a Hurricane. As you'll probably recall from my #freeskinner take in recent years, this will NOT be kind towards the club. If you don't want to hear any of that, well you've been forewarned.
Let's all go back to the start of the 2010-11 season ("please, could we?" I hear you) when a teenage scoring sensation, with ruddy cheeks and a ready smile forced his way onto the roster of what was still a decent Carolina Hurricanes team. A wizened Paul Maurice 2.0 was behind the bench and the Canes were only one season removed from having gone to the Eastern Finals. The previous season had been a frustrating stew of injuries and decline that saw the agonizing last hurrah for Captain Rod Brind'Amour, a 40 game season for Erik Cole and a frustrating 30 appearance season for Cam Ward. The Canes decided to go for offense in the first round of the draft that summer and found a pure goal scoring winger in Jeff Skinner, who had just managed a remarkable 20 goals in 20 playoff games for Kitchener in the OHL. He was confident, he was brash, he was a whirling dervish ... and on a team that was looking a bit old and stodgy he was a breath of fresh air. Carolina's goal totals had declined precipitously since the heights of 2006 and the kid made the final roster out of camp.
Maurice had been around this block before and knew better than to put too much responsibility on a teenager, so he carefully guarded Skinner's ice time. He was used in a support role in 5 on 5 situations, and Maurice tried to manage his shifts to keep him away from checking lines and thugs. In short, he flew .... right from the start. The kid was dynamic and better yet, he was ruthlessly efficient. He buried the puck from all angles and showed a real knack for finding rebounds in traffic. Carolina was hosting the All Star Game that year and at the break the Canes were sitting in pretty good shape. Eric Staal was bubbling along, and Cole was having a solid season in a bounce back year. Tuomo Ruutu was having perhaps his best year as a Hurricane and Jussi Jokinen was setting all of them up. On D, Joni Pitkanen and Tim Gleason were holding down the back end and Ward was playing well enough be named to the All Star team ... along with Staal and, almost shockingly, Jeff Skinner. Not that he wasn't on fire, because he was, but the NHL just didn't name many rookies to All Star teams back then. Clearly it was a bone thrown to the host city, but honestly Skinner deserved it more than Ward did. Sadly, after the high water mark in February the wheels fell off for the Canes. Even Skinner's 31 goal output wasn't enough to elevate their offensive production to where it needed to be. They missed the playoffs and went into another off season feeling like they were "that close" to being good.
Oh, if we had only known. The .555 winning percentage from that season was by far the best the Canes would muster for the rest of Skinner's time in Raleigh as bad coaching, poor roster building and concussions conspired to dim that 100 watt smile and wear down one of the most exuberant players I can ever recall watching in person. Skinner suffered his first concussion in 2011-12 and the team discovered that he, like seemingly a million other wingers, was ill suited to play with flagship center Eric Staal. The offense bogged down as Skinner's spark was dimmed and Maurice paid the professional price. Never much of an offensive strategist, Mo 2.0 gave way to the Captain Kirk era as Kirk Muller was hired; a decision that still puzzles me. He was clearly hired for the classic reasons (fix the power play! ... Staal hates Maurice) but was immature, inexperienced and just flat out the worst man manager possible. And with the leadership having transitioned away from the likes of Brind'Amour, Francis, Wesley, A Ward and Hedican to the likes of the Staal brothers, Pitkanen and Gleason ... the guys weren't capable of dragging themselves back from the brink the way the Maurice 1.0 teams did in the late 90s and early 2000s. Skinner's concussions and his lack of ability and interest in defensive responsibility meant that he would never again find a Hurricanes coach that was comfortable with him again. After the way Maurice was so visibly uncomfortable early in his career with such players as Sami Kapanen and Jeff O'Neill it's ironic that he was Skinner's only advocate as a coach. Frankly, it breaks my heart for the kid.
For me, that was the beginning of the end for Skinner. The point at which things changed. Muller's idiocy gave way to Bill Peters's stubbornness. Eric Staal was joined by and then gave way to Jordan Staal. Sebastian Aho emerged as the face of the team up front. Yet somehow Skinner still never "fit" on a first line; never seemed to be trusted as a "go-to guy" by the organization. Yeah, they gave him an A to wear on his sweater, but even that was couched in some ridiculous home and away rotation with some other guy. He had other concussion setbacks, but he also had those patented Skinner hot streaks when the goals came in HUGE bunches. He topped 30 goals twice more in the next 7 years and popped for more than 25 on two other occasions ... largely on teams that were fairly inept on offense. Yet through it all he found himself used in support roles, often with middling line mates, often on the second power play unit and growing visibly less joyful about it all. For the team, the losing continued like the NC heat in August. Oppressive. Ever present. Draining.
So, we come to the current time. Skinner made it fairly clear that he was going to be moving on when he became a free agent after the 2018-19 season and any Canes fan who feels cheated by him for that is being ridiculous. The man has endured enough on your behalf. The Hurricanes apparently decided that he had to go this summer for "culture" reasons and took the first port in a storm by offloading him like so much scuffed up luggage ... to Buffalo ... for next to nothing in return. They robbed him of even the dignity of bothering to get a good prospect for him and told the world that everyone would be better off this way. He'll be close to his home in Ontario and I'm sure his family will enjoy that. I hope he scores 50 this year. Free Skinner. Go on, son ... be free.
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