One year and 10 games into a five-year deal, it seems that the Edmonton Oilers have had enough of the Jack Campbell experience. The report came from the 32 Thoughts Podcast, one of the premier NHL insiders Elliot Friedman, so a few things can be garnered.
First, the nature of the report is likely true, at least to some extent. Second, everyone across the NHL knows that the Oilers are looking to make a move in net. As such any leverage the Oilers might have had is gone.
Still, the Oilers will have a number of options in moving on from their current goaltending tandem. Let’s take a look at what some of those options might be.
Cap dump
Campbell hasn’t been great as a member of the Oilers, but more than his play being without value it is the combination of his play and his salary that truly becomes untenable for the already cap strapped Oilers. The best case scenario might have been for Campbell to put together a strong season, enough that other teams around the league might covet his services.
Naturally, this has not been the case. Though Campbell is playing better this season than he was this time last year, it has most likely not been enough to convince another NHL team that he is capable of being an outright starter. Still, there is precedent for a cap dump style trade for a similar contract in the Cal Petersen deal.
Petersen struggled out of the gate last season, as did tandem-mate Jonathan Quick, forcing the Los Angeles Kings to completely revamp their goaltending mid season. While Quick is a bit different in that he has the pedigree and championship experience that few goalies across history can claim, Petersen does mirror Campbell closely in their cap hit, years remaining, and overall career performance. It took a while for both Campbell and Petersen to earn a starting goalie’s cap hit, but they were not able to live up to those deals.
Ultimately, Petersen was traded in an offseason cap dump. It was a fairly complex three team trade, that involved the Kings sending Petersen, Sean Walker, Helge Grans, a first-round pick, and a second-round pick to the Philadelphia Flyers, who also sent Ivan Provorov to the Columbus Blue Jackets in the same deal. While it is a steep price to pay, the Kings might have gotten a better price were they willing to take on any salary of their own. In the final season of the stagnant cap, these types of deals are more expensive for teams looking to offload salary.
For some, this cost might seem outrageous, enough to turn some off the idea of a cap dump entirely. One could argue that Campbell is a bit higher quality a player than Petersen, and with a bit more extensive of a track record, which might help the Oilers price here. Theoretically, any cap space the Oilers open up with a trade will be used to add to their roster, meaning there has to be some rhyme or reason to what the Oilers decide to do with it.
While some might feel another forward or defenceman is the piece between the Oilers and better results, part of this whole conundrum is that the goaltending needs to be better most of all. The Oilers could roll the dice on an unexpected veteran still left on the market, like Jaroslav Halak who just signed a PTO with the Carolina Hurricanes, scouring the waiver wire, or trading for an under-appreciated third stringer from another team. The Detroit Red Wings, for example, have a lot of options, though perhaps one of these might be at least as good as Campbell has been.
All of these options are quite risky, especially for a team with aspirations of contending. While the team might be improved in front of the new goalie tandem, Stuart Skinner and whoever, it is a passive and haphazard line of thinking to stake it all on aftermarket bargains.
On the other hand, the Oilers can only lose one game at a time, and clearly doing so has not been feasible enough recently. At this point, Campbell’s contract looks to have already become burdensome, enough that getting out of the deal is probably a boon of its own.
Goalie upgrade
Given the Oilers circumstances, especially within the regular season schedule (as opposed to the offseason) the more likely option is that the team trades Campbell in a package to upgrade their goaltending. As the season progresses more teams will fall out of the race. It should be understood that the Oilers might have to hurry before they are among the first teams (after the San Jose Sharks) to earn this dishonour.
Still, teams with quality goaltenders might be looking towards the future instead of the present. For this reason, it is a bit ambitious to think the Oilers will be making a move with a contending team, such as the Boston Bruins, regardless of the strength of their second favourite backstop.
A natural fit would be Jacob Markstrom, of the Calgary Flames, though such a move would be a departure from how the Flames have operated the past decade. Perhaps new GM Craig Conroy will show a different temperament and vision than the long tenured Brad Treliving. Other options might include John Gibson of the Anaheim Ducks, long rumoured to be on the trade block, and now with Lukas Dostal coming into his own. Marc-Andre Fleury could be a wildcard option as well, as the Minnesota Wild do have a strange cap situation to navigate, though only time and backchannel conversations with Fleury’s agent might help the deal come together, all of which are more finicky variables to work out here.
Regardless of who the Oilers acquire, there is an outline for a return on such a deal. In fact, we might be able to look at the Oilers trade for Mattias Ekholm last season. Tyson Barrie will act as our Campbell comparison, a useful player, circumstantially, with too sizable a contract for the Oilers to afford. While not ideal, in the current cap market having a counterweight salary to send the other way is essential to getting most deals done.
The Oilers added a first-round pick and a top prospect, in that case Reid Schaefer, as major futures, while the Nashville Predators retained enough salary for the Oilers to work with. For those invested in their rebuilding team’s ultimate triumph, accumulating these futures might be the singular most important strategy to employ. While the Oilers should be using these types of assets to maximise their team now, their start has been bad enough that they need to have some sort of lottery protection on their pick.
Without the knowledge of who is or will be on the market for the Oilers to acquire, and without going through the entire league it’s difficult to know what exactly the deal will be. Markstrom might be a relatively obvious option, but others might emerge or re-emerge as well. The values for each will be different, and other teams will have preferences regarding assets.
Oilers GM Ken Holland was a goaltender himself, and has seemed to have prioritised the types of tandem situations we have seen with the Oilers and the Red Wings in the past. Interestingly, the Oilers Senior Director of Data and Analytics, Michael Parkatti, did some work around goalies, their performance, and dedicating cap space towards them, visible on his blog, boysonthebus.com.
Time will tell if we see a departure from the status quo, but which players the Oilers target will surely be affected by the new perspective. It will be a collaborative effort for the Oilers to have a better evaluation on their future goalies than they did on Campbell. Signed as a free agent out of Toronto, the Oilers signing of Campbell was contentious. Campbell had shown promise as the Maple Leafs starter, but only briefly. The Oilers clearly called their shot and it hasn’t paid off.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
