The Toronto Maple Leafs have spent the summer reshaping their roster under new general manager John Chayka, adding a wave of new faces for head coach Jim Hiller to sort through as the team tries to get back into the playoffs. But after all that turnover, one possible low-risk addition has already disappeared from the market.
Jeff Skinner is headed overseas.
The 34-year-old Toronto, Ont. native has signed a one-year deal with EHC Biel-Bienne in Switzerland’s top division, the team announced Friday morning. Skinner’s move means he’s taking his next step in Europe rather than waiting for another NHL opportunity to materialize.
It’s not exactly hard to understand why he’d choose that route. He gets to keep playing, and in a league where he should still have plenty of skill left to stand out, the fit makes sense. Still, it lands as a disappointing ending for a player who once looked like he might have more left to give in the NHL.
Skinner’s NHL comeback never really took off after he terminated his contract with the San Jose Sharks in the middle of last season and went unsigned for the final months of the year. Six weeks into free agency, he’s now making the leap to Europe instead of landing another shot in North America.
That’s what makes this feel like a missed chance for the Leafs. Skinner wasn’t a perfect answer, but he absolutely fit the profile of the kind of bet Toronto could have made.
There was a path where he slides into a third-line scoring role. There was even a world where he rediscovers enough of his touch to play higher up the lineup, perhaps as a shooter alongside John Tavares and Matthew Knies.
The recent numbers show why he still had some appeal. In 32 games with the Sharks last season, Skinner put up six goals and 13 points while averaging just over 12 minutes a night.
The year before in Edmonton, he played 72 games, scored 16 goals and finished with 29 points, again in limited ice time at 13 minutes per game. Go back to 2022-23, though, and the picture changes fast: 35 goals and 82 points in 79 games for Buffalo, following a 33-goal season the year before.
At his best, Skinner was one of the most reliable even-strength scorers around. He was never a complete package, but in the right setup and with sheltered minutes, there was still reason to believe he could help.
That’s especially true on a Leafs roster that now includes Colton Sissons, Nick Paul and Teddy Blueger, all of whom can handle plenty of the defensive heavy lifting and free up Auston Matthews to attack. If Matthews is going to be starting more shifts in the offensive zone, Toronto had a plausible opening to try Skinner in a role that might have worked.
In the end, it’s not a crushing loss. But it does look like a chance the Leafs could have taken, just to see whether there was still something there.
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For the Leafs, any early-season absence from a player of Marchands caliber could alter how the division race begins, especially against a Florida club that has been a direct obstacle in recent years. Even if this does not change the long view of the standings, it gives Toronto a cleaner opening to bank points while one of the Easts most irritating playoff veterans works his way back. [Read more 🡒]
Darryl Sittler Owns A Leafs Feat That May Never Fall
Darryl Sittlers place in Maple Leafs lore already feels secure, but one mark on his resume stands alone in a way that still stops people cold: the most points in a single game by a Toronto player, and in NHL history. On Feb. 7, 1976, he put up 10 points against the Boston Bruins, piling up six goals and four assists in a night that has lived on for nearly half a century as one of the sports most untouchable performances.
What makes the feat linger is not just its scale, but how the game around it has changed since then. Scoring rates have shifted, goaltending has gotten sharper, and the kind of all-out offensive eruption Sittler produced has become harder to imagine, let alone duplicate. For Leafs fans, it is one of those records that does more than survive the passage of time - it quietly reminds every new generation just how exceptional one night in Boston really was. [Read more 🡒]