This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end for Jack Campbell with the Edmonton Oilers but it seemed apparent for months.
By the time Calvin Pickard signed a two-year, $2 million extension on Friday, what had been long assumed was all but confirmed: Campbell wasn’t going to be an Oiler anymore.
A buyout was really the only logical outcome given he’d spent all but five games in the minors this season and had three more years on his $5 million AAV contract. They made that official on Sunday by putting him on waivers for the purposes of buying him out.
The #Oilers have placed goaltender Jack Campbell on unconditional waivers for the purpose of a buyout. pic.twitter.com/lXb1UmGTi3
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) June 30, 2024
Even given all that, it’s remarkable how it reached this point.
It wasn’t even two years ago that Campbell was tabbed as the Oilers’ first true No. 1 goaltender since Cam Talbot. There was so much promise and so much hope that he could be the missing piece of a Stanley Cup-winning team.
Campbell was never going to play 73 or 67 games as Talbot did in back-to-back seasons. But he was expected to be someone the Oilers could rely on in the way they couldn’t with Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith because of inconsistency and injury.
That never came to fruition. It never came remotely close.
Campbell didn’t even last a month into his first season before he lost his starter’s job. That arguably came during a game in Raleigh, N.C., on Nov. 10, 2022. The Oilers lost 7-2 to the Carolina Hurricanes as Campbell surrendered three goals in the third period. Each goal seemed weaker than the last and the goalie grew increasingly exasperated and perplexed whenever the red light went on.
Two days later, Stuart Skinner made 40 saves in a 4-2 win in Sunrise, Fla. It was the latest solid start for the rookie, who was merely thought of as the understudy when Campbell signed. That, for all intents and purposes, signalled the changing of the guard in the Oilers’ crease. Unbelievably, it happened just 10 games into Campbell’s tenure in Edmonton as the so-called unquestioned No. 1 goalie.
There were a couple of bright moments for Campbell after that. He relieved Skinner in Game 4 of last year’s first round when the Oilers trailed 3-0 while down 2-1 in the series and helped them win a pivotal contest. It’s also easy to forget he earned the season-opening start last October based on his stellar play in training camp.
That small sample proved to be fleeting.
Campbell was shelled in Vancouver, allowing four goals on 16 shots in an 8-1 loss before getting pulled. He had one win in his first five games and sported an. 873 save percentage before he was waived and later sent to AHL Bakersfield. To Campbell’s credit, he eventually found his game in the minors. But the combination of a tenuous salary-cap situation and Pickard’s component netminding kept him off the big-league roster until he was called upon to be a black ace for the Oilers’ playoff run.
The Oilers entered the offseason with just over $10 million in cap space but just seven forwards and five defencemen signed. Campbell was the most obvious player to be cleared out to provide more financial flexibility. Once the buyout window opened Thursday, it was only a matter of time.
The $3.9 million in savings for next season should allow them to bring back more of their pending UFAs and help address their needs at middle-six forward and right defence.
The buyout keeps Campbell on the Oilers’ books until 2030, but there are major savings for the next three years. Next season’s cap hit is $1.1 million, and then $2.3 million and $2.6 million for the following two campaigns. The Oilers will be charged $1.5 million per season from 2028 to 2030, according to PuckPedia.
The only thing fitting about Campbell’s departure is it comes in the same week as Ken Holland’s.
GO DEEPER
What’s next for the Oilers after deciding not to bring back Ken Holland as GM?
Holland’s five years as general manager are the most successful since Kevin Lowe helmed the team from 2000 to 2008. His best decisions were signing winger Zach Hyman and trading for blueliner Mattias Ekholm. The Oilers appeared in 11 playoff rounds and won six of them — including three this year as they reached the Stanley Cup Final.
But Holland made some errors, too. Campbell marks the worst of them.
The thing about Holland signing Campbell is the Oilers needed a goaltender. Period. Koskinen left for Europe. Smith couldn’t play anymore due to injury. They simply couldn’t bank on Skinner, with 14 games of NHL experience, to be the starter and have a lower-profile backup. (To note, the Oilers signed Pickard on the same day they signed Campbell — July 13, 2022.)
The Oilers were interested in Ville Husso that summer, but Detroit jumped the gun by trading a third-round pick to St. Louis to acquire him a few days before he would have been a free agent. Darcy Kuemper, a trade target a year earlier before Arizona moved him to Colorado, opted to sign in Washington. It’s not like Husso or Kuemper have worked out with their new teams anyway.
Campbell and the Oilers were basically the last two standing and ready to dance. The mistake wasn’t that they got together; it was the length for which they did. The five-year commitment hurt the Oilers more than anything and has left the biggest stain on Holland’s time with the organization.
Really, though, the length of the contract shouldn’t have been as onerous as it’s become. It would have been moot had Campbell played better.
Sure, some felt he should have started games in the playoffs last year when Skinner struggled. But the coaching staff had lost trust in him by then.
Maybe he should have gotten a longer leash earlier this season. But the Oilers were a mess and something had to give. He never got another chance.
Campbell’s time with the Oilers simply couldn’t have gone any worse. Even his biggest skeptic couldn’t have predicted it going this poorly.
Because it did, though, there was no other option than today’s outcome. We’ve all known that for quite some time.
(Photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
