Recapping free agency so far

Edmonton Oilers sign 30 year old goalie Jack Campbell to a five year, $25 million deal ($5 million cap hit per)

Remember last season when we snagged Zach Hyman in free agency, rescuing him from the toxic sludge of the NHL cesspool of Toronto?

Well, as it turns out Hyman paid dividends for us not only on the ice but off. How you ask? He’s good friends with what until July 13 was an ex-teammate, Jack Campbell, also a new UFA who played for TO the previous season.

He spoke to Campbell while he was making his decision in free agency after it turned out that Toronto didn’t even offer their starter last year a contract (wow……) and so he was going to hit the market and go somewhere. Hyman gave Edmonton a glowing recommendation, which no doubt played into Campbell’s decision to sign here.

And that helped to sell Campbell on playing here – of course their recent run of playoff success making it to the final four with half a starting goalie in Mike Smith, half a Darnell Nurse, and half a Leon Draisaitl certainly didn’t hurt either.

On the whole, this was one free agent signing I’m honestly not really a fan of. Personally I was hoping for Holland to trade for Mackenzie Blackwood from Jersey, as I wrote about here, but instead the Oilers went after an in-demand free agent in Campbell. That doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily have guaranteed success here – just because a player is in demand doesn’t necessarily mean you should back the Brinks truck up to him (Milan Lucic, *cough**cough*), but who knows with Campbell?

Risk factor – high

Many people are applauding the move to sign Campbell to be the starter and tandem with Stuart Skinner, but I’m not one of them.

The cold, hard truth is that Campbell comes with several red flags.

First of all, the man has played in eight seasons in the NHL yet has only 135 NHL games to his name. Typically you don’t know what you have with an NHL player until they reach the 200 game mark. This means that next season the Edmonton Oilers will be running with a tandem of two players between the pipes who are still works in progress. If one of them stumbles the Oilers will be in real trouble and it could torpedo their season, especially if Campbell is the one who struggles as he’s the one who’s slated to play the most games – and unlike with last season since Skinner will be making the jump to the NHL we no longer have a prospect who’s close to NHL ready to bring up (yes I’ll get to Pickard later on). Also yes I realize he may have been stuck behind Jonathan Quick in LA. Campbell is coming here from TO so we know he can play under great pressure, but he’ll be passing that 200 game mark this season so if he struggles that may not be a good omen for how the contract ages. You never know, of course, but it may not be a good omen.

Also, with a $5 million cap hit if Campbell struggles he’ll make Nikolai Khabibulin’s contract look like a good deal.

And that’s not even getting into his actual numbers – while is another red flag.

Campbell may have been the starter for the Leafs last season, but after his games played increased, his stats got worse.

Over his two full seasons in Toronto his games played increased from 22 to 49  – close to what he’s projected to be playing here – and as his games played increased his sv% went down from .921 to .914. This is a nosedive in stats that crosses over from elite to average in today’s NHL. GAA is a similar story, they increased from 2.15 to 2.64.

And so the question remains in my mind – did we just buy a lemon that is only a younger version of Mikko Koskinen – give him more responsibility and he falters? I sure hope not, but the stats from the last two seasons seem to say that.

In the playoffs it gets even worse. All of Campbell’s playoff experience came the last two seasons in TO – both with very mixed results. In the 2020-21 playoff series, he finished with a stingy 1.81 GAA and a sparkling .934 sv%.  Good start.

The problem is his followup postseason after that – a terrible 3.15 GAA and an awful .897 sv%.

So, when Campbell suits up for the Oilers and they almost inevitably make the playoffs, which version of Campbell will show up? Will it be the elite one from his first postseason or the dumpster fire from his second postseason?

Say what you want about Mike Smith, but one thing we could count on from him is he would elevate his play in the postseason – something that we have no guarantee of with Campbell.

Then there’s the persistent rumours of inconsistency that plagued him with TO last season. Will that follow him to Edmonton? Or will the element of a fresh start work in his favour and he raises his game both here and in the playoffs?

We got younger from last season as far as the starting goalie goes, but that’s not hard when your starter is 39 at the beginning of the season. Not exactly a high barometer.

My overall take – I disapprove but am willing to give Campbell a chance. Blackwood comes with much of the same red flags that Campbell does, but at least he would’ve been younger and cheaper. Backing the Brinks truck up to Campbell at this stage of his career means the pro scouts must’ve liked what they saw in him. We can only hope….in the meantime we’ll have to hope that Campbell works out – and honestly I’m willing to let his play win me over – if he can live up to the hype, and his contract, then I’ll be happy and may be singing a different tune at the end of next season. I’d love to be wrong on this one.