The Oilers are expected to sign Jack Campbell to a five-year, $25 million contract
By Cam Lewis
2 years agoIt looks like the Edmonton Oilers have found their goaltender.
According to Kevin Weekes, the Oilers and Jack Campbell are nearing a five-year contract worth $5 million annually.
Campbell was a highly-touted prospect selected No. 11 overall in the 2010 NHL Draft but he didn’t find his footing at the NHL level until nearly a decade later. His first full season in the NHL came in 2019-20 with the L.A. Kings and he posted a .928 save percentage over 31 games.
The following season, Campbell was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs as the team sought a goaltender to split the net with the struggling Frederik Andersen. In 2021, Campbell took over the starting net in Toronto and put up a .921 save percentage in 22 games.
Last season was Campbell’s first full season as a starting goaltender. He played in a career-high 49 games and posted a .914 save percentage. He has a .916 save percentage in 135 NHL games all told.
Here’s what Jon Steitzer, the managing editor of Leafs Nation, had to say when I asked him about Campbell as a fit with the Oilers…
“Jack Campbell has certainly been a late bloomer and for brief stretches has provided the Leafs with elite level goaltending.For the most part he’s been pretty average but having him at the price point of $1.6M AAV probably made us forgive a number of sins including an incredibly low high danger save percentage.One of the other buyer beware concerns with Campbell is he’s not exactly a workhorse and the more the Leafs played him the more he struggled and became prone to injury. Last year was his busiest year in a decade and he’s not getting any younger.If the plan is to give Stuart Skinner a fair bit of work then Campbell makes sense to partner with him and he’s a good team guy that isn’t going to create a lot of fuss.”
After rolling with a Mike Smith and Mikko Koskinen tandem for the majority of three seasons, the Oilers will now go into 2022-23 with Campbell and Stuart Skinner in the net. Given Skinner’s lack of NHL experience, it would be wise for the Oilers to ink a veteran goaltender to be the third-string goalie in the AHL.
Campbell signing with the Oilers continues the trend of Leafs moving out west to play in Edmonton. The Oilers signed Tyson Barrie ahead of the 2021 season and they signed Cody Ceci and Zach Hyman last summer.
Free agency will open at 10 a.m. MT on Wednesday and we’ll provide an update as more news comes out.
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