With a 4-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks at Rogers Place on Friday (April 11), the Edmonton Oilers clinched a spot in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Edmonton will be making its sixth consecutive trip to the postseason and 27th playoff appearance since joining the NHL in 1979.
Related: Oilers Clinch Playoff Spot With 4-2 Win Over Sharks
For most of the Oilers, springtime hockey is old hat. Edmonton’s current roster includes 11 players that have been to the NHL Playoffs five or more times in their career. Ten Oilers skaters have suited up for at least 72 career postseason contests. Corey Perry has played 28 games in the Stanley Cup Final alone.
Then there’s Jeff Skinner, the veteran left-winger from Toronto who joined the Oilers last offseason on a one-year, $3 million contract.
When Skinner steps onto the ice next weekend for Game 1 of Edmonton’s best-of-seven first-round series, likely against the Los Angeles Kings, the 32-year-old will be making his NHL postseason debut. With that, he officially will no longer hold the record of having played in the most NHL regular-season games without appearing in a Stanley Cup Playoff game.
Skinner: Fifteen Seasons to Make the Playoffs
Skinner, who turns 33 next month, has skated in 1,075 NHL regular-season games over 15 seasons, and will probably add a couple more to that total before Edmonton concludes its 2024-25 schedule next Wednesday (April 16) with a visit to San Jose.
That’s almost 300 regular-season games more than anyone else in NHL history has played without making a postseason appearance. Next among active players is Philadelphia Flyers defenceman Rasmus Ristolainen, who has played 776 regular-season games and counting.
Among all retired NHL players, the most games played without suiting up even once in the postseason is 734. That total belongs to Guy Charron, a forward who spent parts of 12 seasons in the NHL, from 1969-70 to 1980-81, with the Detroit Red Wings, Kansas City Scouts, Montreal Canadiens, and Washington Capitals.
Even after he takes his first playoff shift with the Oilers, Skinner will still hold the league record for most games played before appearing in a postseason game. In 2022-23, he surpassed the previous mark held by blueliner Ron Hainsey, who logged 907 regular-season games before finally making his maiden playoff voyage in 2017 as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Skinner Lost Years in Carolina and Buffalo
Perhaps not surprisingly, Ristolainen and Hainsey are both former teammates of Skinner. The Oilers forward skated alongside Ristolainen on the Buffalo Sabres and played with Hainsey as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes.
Skinner debuted in the NHL in 2010 with the Hurricanes, who had drafted him seventh overall that year. He spent his first eight NHL seasons in Carolina while the team was enduring a franchise-record nine-year playoff drought.
During the 2018 offseason, Skinner was dealt from Carolina to the Buffalo Sabres, another team that was in the midst of a record playoff-less streak: the Sabres haven’t advanced beyond the regular season since 2011.
To add insult to injury, Carolina reached the playoffs in its first season without Skinner and haven’t missed since. Skinner, meanwhile, spent six seasons with the Sabres and only really got close to the playoffs once, two years ago, when Buffalo fell just one point short of the Eastern Conference’s second wild card spot.
Skinner Is Postseason-Bound with the Oilers
Last June 30, the Sabres bought out the remaining three years on Skinner’s eight-year, $72 million contract that he had signed in 2019. He signed with Edmonton the next day.
“I think every player wants to play on a competitive team and for me, I’m no different,” Skinner said prior to the 2024-25 NHL season.
In 69 games with Edmonton this season, Skinner has chipped in 16 goals and 12 assists. The 10-time 20-goal scorer doesn’t quite light the lamp like he used to, but he still has the sixth most goals on the Oilers in 2024-25, and could yet prove a difference-maker for Edmonton in his inaugural playoff run.
Meanwhile, his old teammate, Ristolainen, will assume the unfortunate mantle that Skinner carried these last couple of seasons. With Philadelphia officially eliminated from playoff contention this season, the 30-year-old Flyers rearguard is about to become the NHLer to have played the most regular-season games without appearing in the postseason.
