Jeff Skinner and 1,000 games played

He's only 31 while hitting this career milestone and he's carved out a fascinating legacy.

Jeff Skinner speaking with media after signing his eight-year, $72 million contract with Buffalo in 2019. (Photo: Joe Yerdon)

Most often when an NHL player hits the 1,000-game mark, it’s a player creeping up on the end of the road in their career. It takes a lot of time, good health, solid performance, and good luck to accomplish such a feat. For Jeff Skinner at 31 years old, he’s not near the end of his career by any means. If anything, he’s finding ways to evolve in the league and trying to do things his way, just a bit differently is all.

Skinner has made it this far in the league by being remarkably healthy in his career. After some injury scares early on in his time with the Carolina Hurricanes because of concussions, he’s kept the time lost to ailments to a minimum. After debuting in the NHL at 18 years old as a goal-scoring wunderkind fresh out of OHL Kitchener he’s been an even-strength scoring machine.

Until Auston Matthews passed him recently, Skinner had the most goals scored in the NHL by players drafted since 2010 with 357. He scored 40 goals in a season once and 30 or more five other times in 14 seasons. He’s a remarkable talent and considering he’s never been the biggest guy or the fastest guy, it’s impressive.

Yet, his legacy is complicated. He’s never been known to be at all a defensive player, something many people use against him when assessing what he’s done. There’s also the fact he’s yet to play in the postseason, something that’s less to do with him than the situations he’s been in throughout his career. It’s almost as impressive to play in the NHL for 1,000 regular season games and not be in the playoffs as it is to just play 1,000 games, period.

But Jeff Skinner isn’t a GM, he’s just a guy that is extremely gifted at offensive hockey, upsetting opponents, and loves playing the game. That’s not too complicated.

“It's one of those things, I think, in the moment you don't think about, sort of, over the years or you don't really reflect much, I think I just kind of take it day by day, but when something comes like this, and then people are making plans and for me getting asked who is influential in your career and who was who made impacts, then you start sort of looking back and thinking about the list of people, and for me, it's been just kind of like, the list keeps getting longer,” Skinner said. “You think you've sort of covered most of the people that have been important and then there's another person you think of, and they helped you in this different situation that you just kind of remembered.

“I think it's cool to reflect back on all the people that that have helped me and impacted me in a positive way going forward and throughout my career and obviously the longer it goes on the more people that is. I think that's probably been the biggest thing that's been pretty cool. Just kind of the reminder of how long it's been is how many people have helped me or made relationships along the way.”

The highs in Skinner’s career to this point have been, personally, high while the lows have been various, both individually and with his teams, but he’s made an impact on everyone he’s been around no matter what.