Last season the Edmonton Oilers signed Jack Campbell to a 5 year deal worth 5 million per season. At the time I had mixed thoughts on the deal but was still wrote about it overall positively. Looking at Campbell's career numbers he was a netminder who averaged a SV% over 0.910% and looked like he was capable of being a true starter. If he couldn't, than the Oilers had Stuart Skinner who looked like he was coming into his own.

Turns out I was half right. Skinner saved the Oilers season while Campbell played his worst hockey of his career. The only question now is what to expect from him moving forward.

Due to cap constraints, buying Campbell out was never a legitimate option for this season. If he performs as poorly as he did last season than I think we would see that buy-out occur this coming summer. The only real option is to start Campbell as the backup and hope for a bounceback season.

Looking back at where Campbell has had success, he has generally faired the best playing around 25-30 games a season in a backup role. In 31 games with the Kings back in 18/19 Campbell played 31 games with a 0.928SV%. In Toronto with 20/21 he played 22 games with a 0.921SV% and the following year played his most; 49 games and a 0.914SV%.

For now, going back to being a 25-30 game goalie, playing on back to back situations and lesser opponents seems like the starting point. We saw Skinner run out of gas against the Vegas Golden Knights. Edmonton cannot afford to run into that situation again and while Skinner will surely be working on his conditioning this off-season, knowing he is the expected starter it is not feasible to expect him to play 65+ regular season games and into the playoffs.

In my opinion the best option is a 51/31 split between Skinner and Campbell. If Campbell can be even just a hair below 0.910% in those games than that is likely "good enough." The contract remains an overpay as a backup but until the end of the 25/26 season, Edmonton is only paying 7.6 million in netminders... it just so happens that the guy who is the starter is making 2.6 million.

The pressure is on for this team to make some noise and Jack Campbell needs to be a positive contributor to the lineup in order for that to happen. Shake off the struggles of last season and start fresh with a clean slate to start the 23/24 season.

Thanks for reading.

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