What can the Edmonton Oilers do with Jack Campbell

Jack Campbell has three years left on his contract after this year at $5M a season. He has played 41 games as an Oiler, sporting a putrid .888 SV% last year and .873 this year. He is also playing in the AHL, with no immediate plans to call him up.

So what can the Oilers realistically do with him?

It will be hard to trade him without attaching high draft picks. With an extra three years on his deal, a team acquiring him would likely need to be in the early stages of a rebuild, with no goals of competing before his contract expires. They’d also need a lot of cap space.

When he’s in the minors, Campbell takes up $3.85M of the Oilers’ cap. Wasting almost $4M on someone in the AHL, for three more years, should not be in the plans of Oilers’ management. There are some options they need to explore.

What happens if the Oilers buy Campbell out

Option number one, and what I think is most likely, is a buyout. 

It’s tough buying a player’s contract out, because it spans double what’s left on their contract. This means if the Oilers decide to do it at the end of this season, the buyout would last for the next six seasons.

In total, they would save $4.5M over that span. Buyout structures are weird, but Edmonton would be on the hook for just $1.1M next year, $2.3M in 2025–26, $2.6M in 2026–27, and $1.5M for three seasons after that.

This would save the Oilers $3.9M, $2.7M, and $2.4M during the next three seasons. For the three years after, it would cost them $1.5M.

So basically, is paying $1.5M for three seasons after 2026–27 worth saving almost $4M in space next year, and around $2.5M for two years after that?

In my mind, it’s a yes. Creating that much cap room for the next three years, while the team is good, is worth a $1.5M punishment after 2027. Especially since the cap will be going up.

Building Campbell back up

Campbell got off to a wretched start in the AHL, but has turned it around nicely and sports a solid .920 SV% in 28 games. Would the Oilers risk trying again next year with Campbell as a backup? Either way, $5M is a lot to pay for a goalie who would play less than half your games.

If they do decide to give him another shot, though, there are examples of this strategy working out.

Earlier this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs waived a struggling Ilya Samsanov, sending him down to the AHL. He didn’t actually play a game there, but came back up after about two weeks and has returned to form since rejoining the NHL club. 

Sometimes with goalies, it’s all mental. And Campbell is not shy about how the game affects him, having given many emotional postgame interviews in his career. It’s not out of the question he could regain his confidence and come back strong next year. It’s just a massive risk for the Oilers to take given his $5M cap hit.

Is trading Campbell an option?

Cap dump trades happen in the NHL quite a bit. With the way the salary cap is structured, sometimes teams just need to shed salary and will send draft picks to do so. But not many players with three years left on their deals get dumped.

In 2021, the New York Rangers sent Marc Staal and his $5.7M cap hit to the Detroit Red Wings, attaching a second-round pick to Detroit for taking on his contract. In return, they got future considerations. Staal had just one year left on his deal.

The year before, the Toronto Maple Leafs sent a first-round pick to the Carolina Hurricanes to take on one year of Patrick Marleau at $6.25M.

If either of these trades are hints, there is basically no way for Edmonton to get rid of Campbell’s contract without sending multiple high-end picks. That’s something I just don’t see them doing, the cost is too high.

So realistically, the Oilers have two options. Buy him out, or hope he returns to form. 

I’m hoping for a buyout. Edmonton’s cup window is open right now, and creating cap space for the next three years would be massive. 

The odds of Campbell coming back and playing up to his $5M cap hit are so slim, I think cutting bait now and using that money somewhere else is the best course of action. But maybe he proves me wrong.

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Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire