It came out a couple of weeks ago that Skinner has re-upped with the team for $7.8 million over three seasons ($2.6 million per).
While I applaud the move to lock up the Stache man for three years, I have to wonder what Holland is thinking with an amount that high.
After all, Holland should surely be aware that the Oilers are up against the cap and will have difficult enough decisions as it is this coming offseason. Skinner was still an RFA after this season and Holland should’ve taken advantage of that by signing Skinner for $1.5 million for the three years, $2 million at the absolute most. After all, the team has the leverage with restricted free agents due to the fact other teams have to pay a high price to sign them in draft pick compensation, it’s the key UFAs you have to back the Brinks truck up to.
Holland failed to take advantage of this, and as a result, now the Oilers have wiped out the cap savings of Milan Lucic’s retained salary and Andrej Sekera’s buyout that will come after this season and then some. Those two transactions will save the Oilers $2.25 million in cap space, and the Oilers could’ve had some cap space left over from that had they signed Skinner to a lower amount. As it stands now the Oilers will have to find another $350,000 of cap space just to pay for Skinner after this season – which might not be that much in the grand scheme of things but is very much a self-inflicted wound as we could’ve come out of that with space to spare instead of having to find extra.
There’s also the fact that goalies are hard to predict long-term and Skinner is a mere 36 games into his NHL career. What if he struggles next year? If Holland had signed him to a value bridge contract this wouldn’t be as much of an issue if it happens. Now the Oilers would still have to pay Skinner $1.7 million just to play in the minors.
This seems to be a frustrating weakness of Holland – he doesn’t take advantage of the savings we can get from RFAs and as a result, he’s reducing the team’s ability to spend its cap more efficiently.
There’s also the fair point that goalies normally don’t get a lot of cap space allotment unless they’re absolutely surefire elite guys (Jacob Markstrom notwithstanding) because unlike with skaters there are not usually a lot of jobs available around the NHL because teams only need two goalies vs. 12 forwards plus subs and six defencemen plus subs. As a result, league-wide there is typically less demand for goalies which means you can sign them for cheaper.
The smart play would’ve been to sign Skinner for $1.5 million over three years and tell him if he still performs during that time then he’ll get a healthy raise after that.
There will be several cap issues for Holland to deal with next season, especially a new deal for Evan Bouchard. Signing Skinner for over $1 million too much will mean less cap space he’ll have to re-up Bouchard, or even the lesser guys like Ryan Mcleod, Klim Kostin, or Derek Ryan.
Combine this with the $750,000 in extra cap space we would’ve had from the expiration of the Lucic and Sekera dead cap hits and that’s almost $2 million in cap space that’s now wiped out that we sorely need.
So I love the player that was extended but hate the amount he was extended for. If Holland doesn’t want the Oilers to turn into a less extreme version of the Toronto Maple Laffs, he’ll have to start using the leverage from our RFAs more and not less.