Jeff Skinner's career back on track

BOSTON -- As Jeff Skinner repeatedly runs his hand through his brown hair, a couple of silver strands make themselves known. Not many, just one or two. But they look anomalous on the baby-faced Skinner, all of 24 years old.
Perhaps, though, they are appropriate. After all, the Carolina Hurricanes center is a veteran by now, six-plus seasons and 440 games deep into an NHL career that started with so much promise -- his Calder Trophy as the League's best rookie in 2011 attests to that -- which now seems like it might have moved back onto the right track, the one he was headed toward when injuries and bad luck got in the way.

The line that marks the change is surprisingly clear for Skinner: The 2015-16 trade deadline. That was when Carolina traded captain Eric Staal to the New York Rangers, ending a 12-year run with the franchise that included a Stanley Cup win in 2006.
That made Skinner the longest-tenured skater on the Hurricanes, with only goaltender Cam Ward having played longer in Carolina (since 2005-06). It pushed him into responsibility, into leadership, giving him the opportunity and the time and the matchups and the location in the lineup that would allow him to sink or swim.
He swam.

It was something Skinner had been readying for and moving toward for years; as he put it, "I think that you look at the way people grow and develop, they've been doing little things that helped them prepare for a change like that. … It's not like you think, 'Oh, in your seventh year you want to take a big step.' "
And then you do.
"I think there was a significant change from the trade deadline to the end of last year," Hurricanes general manager Ron Francis said Wednesday. "Once we made the trades, there was no question he was getting the ice time and he took full advantage of that. It's carried over this year."
It's the responsibility that's notable; Skinner was awarded one of the four alternate captain roles this season. The Hurricanes have not named a new captain since Staal was traded.
There was a void. And though Skinner has not filled it on his own -- he does not believe that can be done -- he has helped. He has been part of the solution for the Hurricanes, in the mix for a postseason spot a quarter of the way into the season.
"He's just taken on a bit more of a leadership role, playing a little bit more responsibly," coach Bill Peters said. "When he plays the game the right way, he gets rewarded. If he starts to cut some corners, then all of a sudden things go away. So it's a very fair game for Jeff: When he plays the right way, he gets rewarded."

Those rewards are evident. Skinner leads the Hurricanes with 20 points (nine goals, 11 assists), including an assist
Thursday in a 2-1 shootout loss to the Boston Bruins
, putting him three points ahead of linemate Victor Rask.
"He's always been extremely hard-working, a guy off the ice very diligent in his nutrition and how he takes care of his body," Francis said. "He came into camp right from Day One this year with a no-nonsense attitude and worked extremely hard. It's carried over into the season for him."
Skinner's career has not always moved in a straight line, but the path seems to be straightening out of late. He started winning the Calder Trophy after a season when he scored 31 goals as an 18-year-old, along with 32 assists. Those 63 points remain his career high.
He slipped to 44 points the next season, then 24 in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, then had 54, 31, and 51 the next three seasons. There were stumbles and there was pressure, the legacy of that first excellent season and Skinner's competitive streak. Since then, there has been maturation, an ability to cope with those experiences, with the good and the bad, with the emotion.
He is on pace to finish this season with 71 points.

"I think anytime you set the bar extremely high your first year, the expectations do go up," Francis said. "But the one thing when you look at Jeff's game, he's a guy that you put in a category of a goal-scorer. A lot of times those guys need the perfect complementary player, the guy that can get to the puck and give them those opportunities to score.
"Some of it was maybe the expectations being high and some of it just not having the right fit as far as personnel to work with or some of it maybe just not the right opportunity in regards to minutes or position on the power play at times too. So a lot of factors, but whatever they are, he's put those behind him and he's certainly tracking in the right direction now."
That's why the Hurricanes held onto him, even as rumors swirled in the summer of 2015 and at the trade deadline last season. There was an idea that as the Hurricanes rebuilt, as they traded away Staal, that Skinner might soon see a change of venue. But Francis said Skinner wasn't ever going anywhere.
"We're a team that has historically struggled to score goals," Francis said,"and he's the one legitimate goal scorer I've got in my lineup, so I think I'd be in a lot of trouble if I moved the one goal-scorer on a team that can't score."
So he's staying. He is scoring. He is healthy. For Skinner, overcoming injuries has been a part of his story, after sustaining three concussions in the three seasons following that excellent first-year performance.

"I think every player goes through injuries," Skinner said, "every player goes through ups and downs throughout their career, and you want to try and do your best to find the lessons and sort of find the positives in going through sometimes what can be viewed as a negative experience."
That, in the end, is the theme of Skinner's career, of those ups and downs, the dips that have gotten in the way of the stardom he appeared headed toward back when he was 18 and which he still has plenty of time to reach. He has grown in his role, in this organization, as he has racked up games and goals and, yes, maybe a gray hair or two.
It's why it's notable when Skinner refers to all the "young guys" on the Hurricanes, as if, at 24, he is not still one of them. It's why he laughs when that trick of speech is pointed out.
Is he not one of them anymore?
"I guess," he said. "I don't know. We're fortunate to have a bunch of guys that are early on in their careers and younger than me, so I guess that just makes me older by default."
That, and because his experience in the League stretches so far back, to a rookie season that on some days feels like a long, long time ago. A time that has been filled with lessons and learning and more experiences than most 24-year-olds have.
The good news for Skinner is that as much time has gone by, there remains so much more time left. There is a lengthy career stretching in front of him. Fortunately for him and for the Hurricanes, he is just now hitting his stride.