< p>Jeff Skinner has signed a one-year contract with Swiss National League club EHC Biel-Bienne, bringing more than 1,100 games of NHL experience to Europe, according to announcements from the club. The 34-year-old forward’s deal runs through April of 2027.
NHL Career Background and Departure from San Jose
Skinner enters the Swiss league after playing 32 games with the San Jose Sharks during the 2025-26 NHL regular season, where he collected six goals and 13 points, according to Daily Faceoff. After playing sparingly in the first half of the season and becoming a consistent healthy scratch, Skinner and the Sharks mutually agreed to release him from his contract on Feb. 16, more than a month after his last game.
The Carolina Hurricanes originally selected Skinner with the No. 7 overall pick in the 2010 NHL Draft. He immediately jumped from the Ontario Hockey League’s Kitchener Rangers to the NHL as an 18-year-old rookie, scoring 31 goals and 63 points in 82 games to earn an NHL All-Star selection and the Calder Memorial Trophy as the league’s top rookie.
Production Across Four NHL Franchises
Skinner spent the first eight seasons of his NHL career with Carolina before a 2018 trade sent him to the Buffalo Sabres. In his first season in Buffalo, he recorded a career-high 40 goals during the 2018-19 campaign, prompting the Sabres to sign him to an eight-year contract extension worth $9 million per season.
Following wild fluctuations in year-to-year production, Buffalo bought out his contract in 2024. As an unrestricted free agent for the first time, Skinner signed a one-year deal with the Edmonton Oilers for the 2024-25 season. With Edmonton, he appeared in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in his career, skating in five of 22 postseason games and collecting two points as the Oilers reached the Stanley Cup Final.
Across 1,110 career NHL games split between Carolina, Buffalo, Edmonton, and San Jose, Skinner amassed 379 goals, 712 points, and 491 penalty minutes.
Fit with EHC Biel-Bienne
In Switzerland, Skinner joins an EHC Biel-Bienne squad featuring several other North American and NHL alumni, including Gaetan Haas, Lias Andersson, Victor Soderstrom, and Harri Sateri, according to Daily Faceoff.
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