UFA Goaltender Stuart Skinner Linked to Atlantic Division Team
He shared duties with Arturs Silovs for much of the season after getting traded to Pittsburgh, and was outplayed by him in a timeshare during the Penguins' six-game first-round playoff loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.
But overall, Skinner has played 50+ games per season over the last four years, and it would seem like he'd like to find somewhere that would give him that opportunity again.
However, according to Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Sun, one team to keep an eye on for Skinner is the Ottawa Senators.
Why the Senators should have interest in UFA goalie Stuart Skinner
He cites Skinner's connection to Ottawa GM Steve Staios, as the executive spent a year in Edmonton a few years back as a special advisor to the club's hockey operations staff.
It's unlikely that Skinner would be the starter with the Sens over Linus Ullmark. However, Matheson suggests it's something the Senators need to shoot for, for this reason:
"Ullmark needs help in more of a tag-team" type of arrangement, he says, instead of being counted on night after night. This is understandable as the pressure built in Ottawa this season for the former Vezina Trophy winner, and he had to take a personal leave for several weeks in the middle of the season for mental health reasons.
Ullmark finished the year with a 28-12-8 record, an .891 save percentage and a 2.73 goals against average. It was his first time in 11 NHL seasons under the .900 Sv% mark.
As far as cap hit goes, Ullmark is earning $8.25 million per year, a hefty amount. But Matheson notes that even if Skinner gets a raise in free agency from his current $2.6M AAV, to, say, $3.25M, that would total $11.5M for the two goalie tandem. The scribe did the math, and calculated that would be just 9% of the new $104M cap hit. He figures that's a reasonable percentage.
AFP Analytics, however, comes in a little higher than that, and projects a $3.8M AAV for Skinner on his next contract.
He finished the year with an .888 Sv% and a 2.92 GAA across his 50 total starts with Edmonton and Pittsburgh.
Photo: © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
