Monday Mailbag – Should the Oilers go the Cal Petersen route with Jack Campbell?

Happy Monday, dear Internet friends, and welcome to a brand new edition of the Mailbag to help you start your week and break down everything that’s happening with our beloved Edmonton Oilers. This week we’re looking at Jack Campbell’s continued struggles, McDavid and Draisaitl on the same line, Jesse Puljujarvi, and a whole lot more. If you’ve got got a question you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk and I’ll get to you as soon as we can.

It’s not about having fun watching them. The Oilers have won four of their last five games while dealing with significant injuries at forward. Keep doing what works. I’d rather have them on separate lines, but that’s perfect world stuff. This is not that.

I think it’s best to play them apart in the long run, but it’s hard to argue with the results. They also have some below-average teams coming up so letting 97 & 29 just run all over them is tempting. Keep them for now, but by January I’d have them apart again.

I’d prefer to have them separated because I think the overall team depth is better when they are, but with that said, the Oilers are missing a lot of their top nine forwards right now and they need to get wins. This helps them get there.

Campbell has to find his game against NHL competition, not minor league competition. The schedule allows him to be spotted in.

No. Too early in his tenure here. If things haven’t gotten better by January then I would consider it but right now it’s just too early. Ride out Skinner for now and wait and see on Campbell.

Jason talked about that this week and I get it after the Cal Petersen thing in LA, but I just can’t see it happening. My guess is that they’re going to give Stu the reigns here for a bit and Jack will have to work on his game in practice.

I hope so. He has to find a niche and being consistently physical is one of them. He led everybody in hits against Montreal.

I don’t think he is fully embracing it but it’s definitely what he needs to do if he wants to have more success as a top six winger. Be a power forward, not a skilled player.

I like it too. If he can develop a little bit of a mean streak it would give him some extra space out there, which could lead to more goals going in for him. In the meantime, however, I like seeing him more engaged out there because our boy is a giant.

Sure. Start with the absences of Evander Kane and Kailer Yamamoto. That’ll change your tactics, no?

I am noticing that as well. I hope it’s just a product of the injury issues and not a real change is philosophy.

There are a lot of absences on the roster and a bunch of guys that aren’t scoring, so it’s not exactly surprising that he’s leaning on the guys that are contributing.

Does asking people on a hockey website for gift suggestions qualify as putting some thought into it? That aside, Slippers for around the house. Quality, comfortable slippers are a go-to gift. That or the rubber Vampirella body suit. Or both.

The key is to get them something that they haven’t explicitly asked for. That’s my advice.

I would buy her 200 grams of roast chicken deli meat and a 50-pack of Kraft singles. Who doesn’t love a good charcuterie board?

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