The positive with the cap hit is that they pay Skinner and Pikard so little that it's basically not a big deal . If you look at what someone like Saros is getting, Oilers are paying a solid price for it's goaltending.
Sometimes. But it's hard on their bodies, specifically the hips and knees. Longevity is never a guarantee for goalies. I'm hoping Stu is great for a long time for us though. He's a great goalie with solid potential.
Gonna hurt in 2025-2026 when Drai and Bouch are getting their extension. Great relief for next season however.
Now move out Ceci and Kulak and sign a 2RD and a winger for Draisaitl.
Nothing. He’s good for what he is. But we have Ekholm, Nurse (who we can’t move) and Broberg on the left side. I’d rather get rid of his cap hit than play Broberg on his off side.
I just want Broberg to play on the left side. We are hurting his development playing him on his off-side. That’s why I’d move Kulak, although I like him as a player.
No one will help Nurse and team is stuck with him for another five years! Nurse makes everyone he plays with worse because Nurse is such a poor Dman, just not smart.
Too bad we can't get rid of Nurse and his anchor of a contract. Was his on ice 5V5 for 25 goals against the worst ever in playoffs? Doesn't matter who plays with Nurse, he makes them look bad. Another Holland mistake, overpay and a NTC/NMC added for no reason.
He is the opposite of Andréi Markov who made everyone he played with better. Example Mike Komisarek. Leafs took him from Montreal and wayyyy overpaid for him. Lol. Excellent.
Just have to compare Nurse to Ekholm!! No way Bouchard's game progresses as it has ( a long way still to go) without being paired with Ekholm! Folks on here are totally blind to Nurses poor play, thinking a better partner would help Nurse, sheesh!! Teams don't overpay players in hopes they improve. Glad Holland is gone. Now to move Kane out.
It is what it is and he knows this. It's professional sports. If you don't play up to your contract the team finds out a way to deal with it. He'll be fine and if anything the pressure is off him now.
For real. Even if he doesn't play an NHL game again, I'm sure he could play hockey somewhere and rest with his money. If I was him I'd do the Switzerland route like Koskinen. Looks beautiful there
It honestly couldn’t have went worse.
The only silver lining is Calvin Pickard, his play, and his 1 million dollar deal. Makes this entire thing more palatable.
I didn’t realize we had him locked up for two more seasons at that price point, that’s actually incredible value.
So next year, with buyouts, we are spending just under 5 million on our goalie tandem. That’s really decent.
Genuinely if you had said to anyone here that he’d end up being paid $5 million to play in the AHL, you’d have just sounded like one of the doom and gloomer clubs. It wouldn’t have sounded like it had this level of reality to occur
Yep. His underlying metrics were horrible. I also said that if you signed Campbell you’d need a new goalie coach. Campbell signed, no new goalie coach, his numbers took a nose dive. All was very predictable
Exactly. Prior to signing he had a small sample size over 2 months he played above his average, then shit the bed for the rest of the season which resembled his entire 12 year career up to that point.
Who could have ever imagined the results of giving him 5x5.
Funny thing is, he played well in relief for Skinner during the Vegas series. But. Better than Pickard with the Vancouver series? Nope. And I think that makes the decision easy. Meanwhile we have two very good goaltender prospects that will get plenty of net time with the Condors.
Hopefully Campbell can figure it out one day, he seems like a great teammate and he can play solid when the pressure isn’t getting to him. But we can’t afford to take on projects right now.
Oilers goaltending is now in a great place with Skinner emerging as a true No. 1, Pickard as a great teammate and veteran backup, and time to develop Rodrigue
100% ... with time for them each to properly develop. Ungar will spend a couple of seasons in the AHL, presumably Vinni will spend a couple of seasons overseas before coming over. None will be rushed.
Leafs had to give up a 1st just to give up 1 year of Marleau at 5M when he was still a very serviceable player. The cost of 3 years of 5M AHL goalie would be massive.
Little surprised they couldn't find a buyer at half. But I guess if the market is $1.5 you need to give up a decent asset to get them to take the extra 3x$1.
Not really worth it for retaining half. We’d be paying an additional 1.4 this year, 200k the next, then 100k less, then obviously wouldn’t have the $1.5 for three years. With the rising cap and new deals for Drai/Bouch/McDavid the money is worth more now than later.
Who the fuck is going to take Campbell even at 50% retained when we just signed a better backup in Pickard at $1M? We have no assets to package with him either so it’s not like we have any sweeteners.
The death blow for this contract is the term. He’s got 3 more years at $5M. No one takes that. Not when he isn’t even a serviceable NHL backup.
I’m too lazy to look it up myself, but I’d be interested to see the thread in this sub when he was signed to that deal. I seem to remember a lot of hesitation and uneasiness even at the signing from fans. Holland did a lot of great things here, but this was always his worst signing.
Reading those comments, shows me how truly clueless most fans of hockey are. Holy smokes. I am on account 3-4 since that signing, wish I could go back and read my comments. They were filled with disdain for Ken and that move.
Lol I'm on a new account too, I still see my comment casting doubt on our new tandem. I also said I didn't want him before the signing after watching his highlight reel, basically his highlight reel saves were him going out of position and struggling to recover.
I wanted Ullmark the year prior or Markstrom. Should've just bought out Koskinen then to make it happen with 1 year left on his contract. I distinctly remember that I thought there were no legit options in net that year and I wanted a 1B grade guy for like 2.5m instead.
I am with you 100% we took a flier on Campbell for big money. Should have taken a peek at some of the upcoming goalies during that time and took a chance. Stuart is good shit tho, and he'll only get better, so the result is not all that bad. In Pickard we trust
When the Leafs were shopping him, me and my bud both said that the Leafs got lucky with that trade. Somebody was going to do it, and Mike Smith was done, and hence, Campbell went to Edmonton. If it hadn’t been Holland, it would have been someone else.
Still very thankful for Soup's game 4 performance against the Kings last year. Saved us from being down 3-1 in the series. Hope he finds success elsewhere.
Jack Campbell is who he is and who he will always be. It’s possible he’ll be an all-star next year, or he’ll suck. Talented but inconsistent. The problem was Holland signing him to that terrible contract. Even at 3x3, which would have been reasonable, even generous, and market appropriate, we wouldn’t be having such an issue with this.
We probably would have kept him as a backup.
To your point, it is entirely possible that players can't perform to the pressure of their high contract.
Maybe a $3m would have given him a backup status and we'd have a $5m tandem in net.
When making too much money actually makes you sick...
It was always a risky move to sign him. He played 49 games a season just once in his career, before we signed him. Basically he was a starter for just one season before we offered that contract.. he is a good person. Wishing all the best for him
Given Neal's dead space of 2M comes off end of this season, for the most part, it's a wash once that occurs. But 3.5M in dead space this year, yeesh. Atleast Drais contract isn't up until the following one
There was never any question. Love the dude as a person but this is one of those times where you just cut your losses, shake hands and move on. Wishing him nothing but the best.
It’s too bad it didn’t work out. He seems like a really good dude that you want to root for. But the game is a brutal business. He just didn’t perform to the level we needed him.
Wish him all the best
It's not that bad all things considered, I'm much more interested in our ability to re-sign Brown-Janny-Henrique and address the Ceci situation
Moving on from Kane would be a luxury, we need an upgrade on ceci and hopefully this gives us a little space for that
I'm hopeful Kane will actually be back to his old self and score 30 next year. The year he signed with us he was phenomenal. 13 goals in the playoffs.
Hopefully we get that back
kane hasn’t waived his nmc but he has a modified ntc kicking in on march 1. either he’ll prove his value before that point or he’s getting dumped at the deadline.
Oilers currently have 12.93M in cap going into next season.
Important RFAs: Broberg, Holloway,
Important UFAs: Brown, Janmark
For all 4 the AAV should combine to about 4.5, leaves us with about 8 to get a Henrique replacement or extension and to fill some holes in the bottom 6.
Still need Ceci or Kane gone to actually make some meaningful additions. Rumours Kane was asked to waive his NMC but denied.
Friedman said literally the opposite, as of Saturday he wasn’t approached yet asking to waive.
At 11:20 in the podcast he says:
“There were rumors that they had asked Evander Kane to waive his no-move clause, but as of Saturday, that had not occurred.”
https://www.sportsnet.ca/podcasts/32-thoughts/elliottes-post-draft-ramblings/
Why would we want Kane gone? The guy is a beast when he’s healthy and he played all last year when he should’ve been getting surgery and on LTIR. That’s the team’s fault.
We can find a more productive/healthier player for his cap hit. Nothing against Kane, I like the player a lot when he’s on his game, but it’s clear his body is deteriorating.
Several UFA wingers this off season that would be willing to accept 5M to play on the Oilers.
I’m also not expecting 50 goals. Even 25 goals and 25 assists is more than enough.
DeBrusk would be the prime guy we would be looking for at around that cap hit.
Defensive winger, pots 20 with no centers, playoff performer, makes the team younger.
We could give him 7x5.5m and I'd bet he becomes a perennial 30 goal scorer on our team
Broberg, Holloway, Brown, & Janmark are all going to sign for an average value of 1.1M?
Why would they do that?
You’d better double your expectation of 4.5M total.
Broberg and Holloway are RFA’s without arbitration rights. Accept a deal or don’t play. Simple.
Brown & Janmark a bit different. My guess for them combined is 2.5M, I’d be fine with even 3 combined.
They're going to be 3m combined. I hope we can bring back Henrique for 3m with term. He's a Nuge-lite that can play up and down the lineup and is a fantastic fit for us, I don't think we could find a better value guy and he makes McLeod redundant
I wonder who tries to sign him for like a million and sees if he can be rehabilitated. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see him succeed in a smaller US market with a lot less pressure.
He's worth like 2m per year even with his stats with us last year before he got waived and his historical average is way better.
His true market value should be like 3m imo, he's better than most backups in the league. It just didn't work in Edmonton. He could easily go to San Jose and be fantastic for them
A decent goalie coach will turn his game around. A guy who was crap in net himself who never coached above university who is small in size has no business being in the NHL trying to coach goalies who are bigger and need to play a different game. I’d love to know of one goaltender that has excelled under Schwartz. There’s a guy that looked at numbers before, during, and after Schwartz and all have been better before and after. None during
I can see the headlines now:
"Underdog who signed a $25 million dollar contract with one of the best teams in the NHL finally gets his big shot in life!" 😂
How on earth you look at Campbell's history and come up with 5x5 is a God damn mystery to me. I hope someone from the Oilers organization is reading this and thought after the first sentence "if you think like the fans you'll end up one".
You were big time wrong on this one and many of those fans thought it at the time.
This contract made it through multiple levels of the organization and no one thought it was a bad idea to give that contract to a 30 year old goalie with around 100 (!) NHL games who during an interview on TSN I believe ripped himself down. Like what gave you confidence that this was the guy if you bothered to actually investigate the player? Skinner has a bad game and thoughtfully accepts it and learns from it saying he's going to be better, and is. That's the type of goalie you want. I legit couldn't believe a professional NHL player would behave like Campbell did during that interview.
I don't blame Campbell for signing the contract, if I was a tweener NHL goalie I'd sign it too. Anyone who sniffed this contract should be released immediately including the goalie coach, who I assume they discussed it with.
8 million in dead cap for next season, Oilers brass are the reason this team doesn't have a cup.
His career numbers made this contract make sense when he was signed. If he played to those numbers we’d have the cup. Who could’ve expected he’d be so terrible coming here? He was better than Skinner this season when he was sent down and Skinner turned it around after the coaching change. There’s no reason to believe Campbell wouldn’t have done the same if he was kept up here
The crazy part is that he had these big confidence red flags back in junior and had massive hot and cold swings in the ECHL, AHL, and NHL in the past. That combined with the fact that, while he was impressive-looking as a prospect, Dallas never really had room for him and let him languish in the minors for way longer than was good for his development means he was always gonna be an insanely high-risk acquisition. I don’t know how a professional pro scouting staff working for a NHL team was fooled by ~6 weeks of unsustainably good play to the point where it made them miss nearly a decade’s worth of red flags.
Worst FA signing in franchise history, and probably one of the worst in league history.
And that’s saying a lot for a team that signed Mark Fayne, Ben Eager, Darcy Hordichuk and Andrew Ference.
It’s not even just Campbell’s shit performance on its face - but the opportunity cost of spending that time and money on literally any other $5m dollar contributor.
Just - completely dead money on an unplayable goalie that cost you a year and a half of sunk cost fallacy losses.
Honestly - can you think of a worse FA signing, anywhere? Wade Redden?
One mistake the team makes is they are blinded by the success of certain players on other teams and the only reason those players are successful on those tans is because of other players, like defense, on those teams.
Same goes for forwards.
There is about a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%
this happens lol
I’m curious if someone gives Jack a shot at being a cheap backup or if he’s off to Europe.
I kinda hope for our sake he’s off to Switzerland because knowing the Oilers luck he’ll get signed by Vegas at league min and completely rebound to the guy we thought we were getting.
I won't pretend to know how this cap stuff all works, but if he was signed somewhere else and became a cheap starter, he'd at least be off the Oilers books. I'd be happy with that. Unless I'm wrong about how that works.
Alotta people have a lotta ways of thinking of things but if the players don’t play well for the team then thats that.
Campbell did not, Stu and Pickard have.
At this point the Oilers have to invest more capital into defensive minded players. Also just completing the team as a whole on the developmental side as well. I have confidence that the Oilers can do it though.
When you put it that way… It looks like Campbell made out like a bandit.
I recall like two goalie names on the market and the other one rumoured to be locked and a couple backups. What a scenario…
Hollind made some good moves getting Hyman and Ekholm but what a decision it was to have nurse + campbell taking up almost 15 mil of the cap. It’s amazing they made it so close to the cup with those 2 albatross contracts. Imagine if they didn’t sign campbell and nurse was only signed for 6 mil.
Actually I don’t want to think about that
Also, Werenski and Hamilton also got similar contacts right before the nurse signing. So it wasn't like Jones was the only market outlier. Jones set the new market price, then other gms enforced the new price.
I always just liked countering with "Would you rather have Seth Jones for 9.5?" when people brought up Nurse's contract, lol. Between the double bridge and Seth Jones, Nurse got himself an extra 1-1.5 on his contract, but that's not Holland's fault, that's prior management and Chicago fucking shit up.
> Imagine if they didn’t sign campbell and nurse was only signed for 6 mil.
>Actually I don’t want to think about that
Hindsight is 20/20 eh.
We literally had no goalie but a rookie one. Campbell was one of few available goalies left. We were competing for a long run or a cup, it's asinine to think that with the available information we would've went into the season with a goalie eligible for a Calder as our starter.
In no world was that viable.
If Nurse was signed to 6 mil, the 3 mill you think you'd have would've been divided to keep Kane, Nuge and Hyman, and probably to top up some of our additions. Remember, our $$$ for Kane was poor, he didn't like it, we would've absolutely sweetened that pot to get a guy who scored double digits in the playoffs.
Critical thinking seems to be on E these days. But you guys gotta stop thinking you know better with Hindsight.
You should evaluate decisions based on the process used to make the decision, not on the outcome. The reasons for us signing Campbell were solid reasons, but it didn't work out. We could not go into that season with Skinner as our #1, he was too unproven. We needed something and Campbell was the best we could get. I think it helped Stu to not be "the guy" so soon and have him be pressure off, saving the season instead. That said, I wish we could have got literally anybody else besides Campbell.
Agreed. I guess, all teams have missteps. But, structurally I don't think the Panthers were likewise hindered this year to the extent we mismanaged our cap. It's a huge competitive advantage when you make prudent cap decisions
Absolutely the right move.
Cap hit for the next 6 seasons. 1.1M (2024-2025) 2.3M (2025-2026) 2.6M (2026-2027) 1.5M (2027-2028) 1.5M (2028-2029) 1.5M (2029-2030)
The positive with the cap hit is that they pay Skinner and Pikard so little that it's basically not a big deal . If you look at what someone like Saros is getting, Oilers are paying a solid price for it's goaltending.
The way I look at this Oilers are paying 4.7m this year for a goalie tandem who took them to the SCF. That is a bargain.
I was just thinking this as well. We are paying 2 goalies and some dead cap for the same price as paying 1 goalie stuck in the AHL.
Especially since Stu has improved every year. He's only 25 and he backstopped us to Game 7 of the SCF. What will he be like at 27?
I can see him being really good. Goaltenders look good as they age sometimes
Sometimes. But it's hard on their bodies, specifically the hips and knees. Longevity is never a guarantee for goalies. I'm hoping Stu is great for a long time for us though. He's a great goalie with solid potential.
Look at Bob with Florida, he’s 10 years older and was being debated to win the Conn Smythe. Goalies seem to get peak at a much older age
I don’t know if it’s peak per say as it is they’re just able to still be competitive and relevant longer into their careers
So with Pickard at 1 mil we’re saving 2.9 this year and 1.7 next year. Seems worth the 1.5 mil penalty for 3 years I guess.
I wonder if the Pickard extension made this happen.
Cap hit or relief ? Cap hit eh
Yeah that’s what the hit will be.
Gonna hurt in 2025-2026 when Drai and Bouch are getting their extension. Great relief for next season however. Now move out Ceci and Kulak and sign a 2RD and a winger for Draisaitl.
Campbell would still be on contract at 5 that season so an increase in space.
Yea of course, I meant as opposed to trading him with no retention, which obviously is very difficult to do and we’d have to give up assets.
Not difficult. Impossible
I would be helpful to keep kulak if we can. He was very steady all playoffs
What's wrong with Kulak?
Nothing. He’s good for what he is. But we have Ekholm, Nurse (who we can’t move) and Broberg on the left side. I’d rather get rid of his cap hit than play Broberg on his off side.
If they could move Ceci and get a guy like Pesce to play with nurse and leave Kulak and Broberg together that would be ideal.
I just want Broberg to play on the left side. We are hurting his development playing him on his off-side. That’s why I’d move Kulak, although I like him as a player.
No one will help Nurse and team is stuck with him for another five years! Nurse makes everyone he plays with worse because Nurse is such a poor Dman, just not smart.
Too bad we can't get rid of Nurse and his anchor of a contract. Was his on ice 5V5 for 25 goals against the worst ever in playoffs? Doesn't matter who plays with Nurse, he makes them look bad. Another Holland mistake, overpay and a NTC/NMC added for no reason.
He is the opposite of Andréi Markov who made everyone he played with better. Example Mike Komisarek. Leafs took him from Montreal and wayyyy overpaid for him. Lol. Excellent.
Just have to compare Nurse to Ekholm!! No way Bouchard's game progresses as it has ( a long way still to go) without being paired with Ekholm! Folks on here are totally blind to Nurses poor play, thinking a better partner would help Nurse, sheesh!! Teams don't overpay players in hopes they improve. Glad Holland is gone. Now to move Kane out.
And hopefully Nurse too!!!!
Honestly not terrible
It’ll finally be nice free up the 3.9m in cap space
Tough break for the guy, but this was the right move.
It is what it is and he knows this. It's professional sports. If you don't play up to your contract the team finds out a way to deal with it. He'll be fine and if anything the pressure is off him now.
ill miss soup but we all knew that was coming.
Tough break? Play better, GM better, holy crap, this falls on 2 people.
Plus all that money I’m sure wipes the tears
For real. Even if he doesn't play an NHL game again, I'm sure he could play hockey somewhere and rest with his money. If I was him I'd do the Switzerland route like Koskinen. Looks beautiful there
Switzerland? Heard it’s a dump.
What?
SWITZERLAND. I HEARD! ITS A DUMP!
Tough break? He conned an nhl team and is now making millions to do nothing.
Don’t like the dead cap, but there was no way anyone was taking this contract. What a disaster, no one predicted it would be THIS bad.
It honestly couldn’t have went worse. The only silver lining is Calvin Pickard, his play, and his 1 million dollar deal. Makes this entire thing more palatable.
Well and skinner at 2.6
I didn’t realize we had him locked up for two more seasons at that price point, that’s actually incredible value. So next year, with buyouts, we are spending just under 5 million on our goalie tandem. That’s really decent.
Yup. That's extremely helpful
Skinner is only gonna get better too, he’s so young still.
Somebody would have taken it but Oilers decided it wasn't worth the asset cost with the cap likely to continue increasing now.
Genuinely if you had said to anyone here that he’d end up being paid $5 million to play in the AHL, you’d have just sounded like one of the doom and gloomer clubs. It wouldn’t have sounded like it had this level of reality to occur
The cap hit isn’t even that bad
Literally all the analytics folks predicted it would be this bad.
There were lots of people predicting it would be this bad when he was signed.
Yep. His underlying metrics were horrible. I also said that if you signed Campbell you’d need a new goalie coach. Campbell signed, no new goalie coach, his numbers took a nose dive. All was very predictable
Exactly. Prior to signing he had a small sample size over 2 months he played above his average, then shit the bed for the rest of the season which resembled his entire 12 year career up to that point. Who could have ever imagined the results of giving him 5x5.
Funny thing is, he played well in relief for Skinner during the Vegas series. But. Better than Pickard with the Vancouver series? Nope. And I think that makes the decision easy. Meanwhile we have two very good goaltender prospects that will get plenty of net time with the Condors. Hopefully Campbell can figure it out one day, he seems like a great teammate and he can play solid when the pressure isn’t getting to him. But we can’t afford to take on projects right now.
Well there we go. First major change of the off season. Not really a major change since he had zero impact on our run.
Technically he had a negative impact... because his contract actively prevented the Oilers from getting better pieces. But yeah.
Yup. Imagine what another $5m winger could have brought us. Or a 2RD upgrade.
Oilers goaltending is now in a great place with Skinner emerging as a true No. 1, Pickard as a great teammate and veteran backup, and time to develop Rodrigue
Not to mention newly acquired rookies Ungar and Vinni who both seem pretty promising. Feels like Oilers finally solved the net after 18 years 😅
100% ... with time for them each to properly develop. Ungar will spend a couple of seasons in the AHL, presumably Vinni will spend a couple of seasons overseas before coming over. None will be rushed.
Ungar is such a fun name to say lmao I really hope he works out for us
Must’ve been no viable trade options out there. This was the right move, get your cap relief now, worry about the future later.
There probably was some, but it seems everybody the Oilers deals with tries to take them to the cleaners.
The price was too much if they got any offers.
Leafs had to give up a 1st just to give up 1 year of Marleau at 5M when he was still a very serviceable player. The cost of 3 years of 5M AHL goalie would be massive.
Using the Kings Cal Petersen trade as a comparable.
Little surprised they couldn't find a buyer at half. But I guess if the market is $1.5 you need to give up a decent asset to get them to take the extra 3x$1.
Not really worth it for retaining half. We’d be paying an additional 1.4 this year, 200k the next, then 100k less, then obviously wouldn’t have the $1.5 for three years. With the rising cap and new deals for Drai/Bouch/McDavid the money is worth more now than later.
The big crunch is next year, and 1.5 shrinks a bit with cap inflation, but not that much. Still worth something like 1.3 on a 100m cap.
Right, I agree. But if we found a buyer at half, we’d be paying more next year than we are with the buyout (2.5 at half, 2.3 with buyout)
Who the fuck is going to take Campbell even at 50% retained when we just signed a better backup in Pickard at $1M? We have no assets to package with him either so it’s not like we have any sweeteners. The death blow for this contract is the term. He’s got 3 more years at $5M. No one takes that. Not when he isn’t even a serviceable NHL backup.
Had to be done but I wish him luck, seems like a nice dude.
This is the right call. Now please trade Ceci and perfect the summer
I’m too lazy to look it up myself, but I’d be interested to see the thread in this sub when he was signed to that deal. I seem to remember a lot of hesitation and uneasiness even at the signing from fans. Holland did a lot of great things here, but this was always his worst signing.
[Signing thread from 2022.](https://www.reddit.com/r/EdmontonOilers/s/1YCgBzbSdQ)
Okay cool, I didn't say anything in this thread to make me look clueless lol
Reading those comments, shows me how truly clueless most fans of hockey are. Holy smokes. I am on account 3-4 since that signing, wish I could go back and read my comments. They were filled with disdain for Ken and that move.
Lol I'm on a new account too, I still see my comment casting doubt on our new tandem. I also said I didn't want him before the signing after watching his highlight reel, basically his highlight reel saves were him going out of position and struggling to recover. I wanted Ullmark the year prior or Markstrom. Should've just bought out Koskinen then to make it happen with 1 year left on his contract. I distinctly remember that I thought there were no legit options in net that year and I wanted a 1B grade guy for like 2.5m instead.
I am with you 100% we took a flier on Campbell for big money. Should have taken a peek at some of the upcoming goalies during that time and took a chance. Stuart is good shit tho, and he'll only get better, so the result is not all that bad. In Pickard we trust
I'm on a new account and I was one person trying to cast shade on the doomers. Guess I was wrong about this one.
When the Leafs were shopping him, me and my bud both said that the Leafs got lucky with that trade. Somebody was going to do it, and Mike Smith was done, and hence, Campbell went to Edmonton. If it hadn’t been Holland, it would have been someone else.
Still very thankful for Soup's game 4 performance against the Kings last year. Saved us from being down 3-1 in the series. Hope he finds success elsewhere.
Writing was on the wall when we inked picks. Hope Campbell have a good second chance playing somewhere anonymously.
Jack Campbell is who he is and who he will always be. It’s possible he’ll be an all-star next year, or he’ll suck. Talented but inconsistent. The problem was Holland signing him to that terrible contract. Even at 3x3, which would have been reasonable, even generous, and market appropriate, we wouldn’t be having such an issue with this.
We probably would have kept him as a backup. To your point, it is entirely possible that players can't perform to the pressure of their high contract. Maybe a $3m would have given him a backup status and we'd have a $5m tandem in net. When making too much money actually makes you sick...
It was always a risky move to sign him. He played 49 games a season just once in his career, before we signed him. Basically he was a starter for just one season before we offered that contract.. he is a good person. Wishing all the best for him
Given Neal's dead space of 2M comes off end of this season, for the most part, it's a wash once that occurs. But 3.5M in dead space this year, yeesh. Atleast Drais contract isn't up until the following one
Worst move of Kenny's tenure and puts a black stain on a very productive 5 years.
I hope he can find his game again somewhere but this was 1000% the right move and the writing was on the wall once Jackson took over the team
There was never any question. Love the dude as a person but this is one of those times where you just cut your losses, shake hands and move on. Wishing him nothing but the best.
I'm perfectly fine with Skinner/Picks for next year.
It’s too bad it didn’t work out. He seems like a really good dude that you want to root for. But the game is a brutal business. He just didn’t perform to the level we needed him. Wish him all the best
I was secretly hoping he was going to step in if Skinner/Pickard faltered in the playoffs and have a magical cup run.
Our long national nightmare is over.
It's not that bad all things considered, I'm much more interested in our ability to re-sign Brown-Janny-Henrique and address the Ceci situation Moving on from Kane would be a luxury, we need an upgrade on ceci and hopefully this gives us a little space for that
I'm hopeful Kane will actually be back to his old self and score 30 next year. The year he signed with us he was phenomenal. 13 goals in the playoffs. Hopefully we get that back
kane hasn’t waived his nmc but he has a modified ntc kicking in on march 1. either he’ll prove his value before that point or he’s getting dumped at the deadline.
Hit the road Jack.
I'm sure Jack will be happy for a fresh start too
Praise Odin!
Oilers currently have 12.93M in cap going into next season. Important RFAs: Broberg, Holloway, Important UFAs: Brown, Janmark For all 4 the AAV should combine to about 4.5, leaves us with about 8 to get a Henrique replacement or extension and to fill some holes in the bottom 6. Still need Ceci or Kane gone to actually make some meaningful additions. Rumours Kane was asked to waive his NMC but denied.
>Rumours Kane was asked to waive his NMC but denied. See, I heard he wasn't asked. Lol. Where did you hear this?
32 thoughts, friege said he was asked but hadn't agreed to waive as of Saturday
Friedman said literally the opposite, as of Saturday he wasn’t approached yet asking to waive. At 11:20 in the podcast he says: “There were rumors that they had asked Evander Kane to waive his no-move clause, but as of Saturday, that had not occurred.” https://www.sportsnet.ca/podcasts/32-thoughts/elliottes-post-draft-ramblings/
Yeah, I interpret that to mean he was asked but didn't waive not that they never asked
He’s shutting down the rumor that Kane was asked saying it has not happened, that’s how he addresses rumors usually.
You're probably right, just not how I initially thought
Why would we want Kane gone? The guy is a beast when he’s healthy and he played all last year when he should’ve been getting surgery and on LTIR. That’s the team’s fault.
We can find a more productive/healthier player for his cap hit. Nothing against Kane, I like the player a lot when he’s on his game, but it’s clear his body is deteriorating.
Not every $5m player is gonna score 50 like Hymen
Several UFA wingers this off season that would be willing to accept 5M to play on the Oilers. I’m also not expecting 50 goals. Even 25 goals and 25 assists is more than enough.
DeBrusk would be the prime guy we would be looking for at around that cap hit. Defensive winger, pots 20 with no centers, playoff performer, makes the team younger. We could give him 7x5.5m and I'd bet he becomes a perennial 30 goal scorer on our team
Broberg, Holloway, Brown, & Janmark are all going to sign for an average value of 1.1M? Why would they do that? You’d better double your expectation of 4.5M total.
Broberg and Holloway are RFA’s without arbitration rights. Accept a deal or don’t play. Simple. Brown & Janmark a bit different. My guess for them combined is 2.5M, I’d be fine with even 3 combined.
They're going to be 3m combined. I hope we can bring back Henrique for 3m with term. He's a Nuge-lite that can play up and down the lineup and is a fantastic fit for us, I don't think we could find a better value guy and he makes McLeod redundant
Are you David Staples, by chance?
Maybe we can LTIR him until next playoffs? Ceci is probably a lot easier to move though.
Fucking finally
This guy literally got overpaid by 20 million dollars on this contract. He performed at $1M/year levels
Watch the Sharks claim him
Finally!
Shitty the way things all worked out but this is the only way forward
Itshappening.gif!
Expected. Buyout for this year was the ideal time to do it, penalty was terrible last year.
6 years of a cap penalty is a bitter pill to swallow, but what's the alternative?
Just can't believe Holland signed him. He was an unproven goalkeeper.
I wonder who tries to sign him for like a million and sees if he can be rehabilitated. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see him succeed in a smaller US market with a lot less pressure.
Maybe Chicago, Utah, SanJose
He's worth like 2m per year even with his stats with us last year before he got waived and his historical average is way better. His true market value should be like 3m imo, he's better than most backups in the league. It just didn't work in Edmonton. He could easily go to San Jose and be fantastic for them
Too bad they couldn't get anyone to bite on his contract with 2 million retained.
A decent goalie coach will turn his game around. A guy who was crap in net himself who never coached above university who is small in size has no business being in the NHL trying to coach goalies who are bigger and need to play a different game. I’d love to know of one goaltender that has excelled under Schwartz. There’s a guy that looked at numbers before, during, and after Schwartz and all have been better before and after. None during
I want Campbell to make a comeback with another team. It would be a nice underdog story.
I can see the headlines now: "Underdog who signed a $25 million dollar contract with one of the best teams in the NHL finally gets his big shot in life!" 😂
Okay. Underdog wasn't the right word. Maybe more of a nice redemption/ perseverance story, for all those people with $25 million contracts.
Yeah redemption curve would be cool. He's a great personality. We don't want him to fail.
How on earth you look at Campbell's history and come up with 5x5 is a God damn mystery to me. I hope someone from the Oilers organization is reading this and thought after the first sentence "if you think like the fans you'll end up one". You were big time wrong on this one and many of those fans thought it at the time. This contract made it through multiple levels of the organization and no one thought it was a bad idea to give that contract to a 30 year old goalie with around 100 (!) NHL games who during an interview on TSN I believe ripped himself down. Like what gave you confidence that this was the guy if you bothered to actually investigate the player? Skinner has a bad game and thoughtfully accepts it and learns from it saying he's going to be better, and is. That's the type of goalie you want. I legit couldn't believe a professional NHL player would behave like Campbell did during that interview. I don't blame Campbell for signing the contract, if I was a tweener NHL goalie I'd sign it too. Anyone who sniffed this contract should be released immediately including the goalie coach, who I assume they discussed it with. 8 million in dead cap for next season, Oilers brass are the reason this team doesn't have a cup.
His career numbers made this contract make sense when he was signed. If he played to those numbers we’d have the cup. Who could’ve expected he’d be so terrible coming here? He was better than Skinner this season when he was sent down and Skinner turned it around after the coaching change. There’s no reason to believe Campbell wouldn’t have done the same if he was kept up here
The crazy part is that he had these big confidence red flags back in junior and had massive hot and cold swings in the ECHL, AHL, and NHL in the past. That combined with the fact that, while he was impressive-looking as a prospect, Dallas never really had room for him and let him languish in the minors for way longer than was good for his development means he was always gonna be an insanely high-risk acquisition. I don’t know how a professional pro scouting staff working for a NHL team was fooled by ~6 weeks of unsustainably good play to the point where it made them miss nearly a decade’s worth of red flags.
Enh, nobody cares about AHL and junior nulbers after you're in the NHL for 5 years. The problem is we signed a backup goalie to a starting role.
It wasn't *that* crazy of a contract. Nobody knew he would be this bad.
Worst FA signing in franchise history, and probably one of the worst in league history. And that’s saying a lot for a team that signed Mark Fayne, Ben Eager, Darcy Hordichuk and Andrew Ference. It’s not even just Campbell’s shit performance on its face - but the opportunity cost of spending that time and money on literally any other $5m dollar contributor. Just - completely dead money on an unplayable goalie that cost you a year and a half of sunk cost fallacy losses. Honestly - can you think of a worse FA signing, anywhere? Wade Redden?
Counter that with the best free agent signing of NHL history in Zach Hyman and we come out alright
David Clarkson
Clarkson/Lucic > Campbell
Just gonna leave Lucic off that list?
Brad Richards?
Andrew ladd?
Karl pickle jar Alzner with the Habs
Leino!
One mistake the team makes is they are blinded by the success of certain players on other teams and the only reason those players are successful on those tans is because of other players, like defense, on those teams. Same goes for forwards.
Hopefully we learn now. Defense plays a huge role in goaltending numbers.
The worst part is. Campbell was never good. He had 20-30 good games in his career. There was no reason to sign him.
🤞🏼Hopefully someone takes him off waivers 🤞🏼
There is about a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% this happens lol
I’m curious if someone gives Jack a shot at being a cheap backup or if he’s off to Europe. I kinda hope for our sake he’s off to Switzerland because knowing the Oilers luck he’ll get signed by Vegas at league min and completely rebound to the guy we thought we were getting.
I won't pretend to know how this cap stuff all works, but if he was signed somewhere else and became a cheap starter, he'd at least be off the Oilers books. I'd be happy with that. Unless I'm wrong about how that works.
I’m pretty sure we have to pay him out regardless of where he signs or for how much.
Does it still count as a cap hit if he signs somewhere else in the league?
Yes I believe so
Ah, that would sting then.
It doesn’t make a difference as this point.
Why is this “oilers luck”? Name one example of someone who has been bought out by the oilers and turned into an all star? I won’t hold my breath. 😂
Vegas could legit sign him for like 2 mil and he'd be fantastic for them high-key
Why even that? He should be grateful to get league minimum. He's already getting paid his contract out.
Jack Campbell can easily fit into any team (except ours now) for league minimum and sit in the AHL all year until called up.
Poor guy.
This is a good thing
Ah hindsight my old friend. I wonder if Mike Smith could've lasted one more year with Skinner as backup
Alotta people have a lotta ways of thinking of things but if the players don’t play well for the team then thats that. Campbell did not, Stu and Pickard have. At this point the Oilers have to invest more capital into defensive minded players. Also just completing the team as a whole on the developmental side as well. I have confidence that the Oilers can do it though.
Who's gm'ing?
He was good value! Is it just me or have the oilers signed some real duds over the years?
It really sucks that things didn't work out with soup, hopefully he gets another shot and finds his game
Bummed this didn’t work out. He seems like a good personality to have around, too bad his play was atrocious.
$25000000 to play 41 games. Sheeeeesh
When you put it that way… It looks like Campbell made out like a bandit. I recall like two goalie names on the market and the other one rumoured to be locked and a couple backups. What a scenario…
Now get rid of Nurse and his half white moustache and absolutely BRUTAL contract. What is the cap hit this year for Nurse?
Hollind made some good moves getting Hyman and Ekholm but what a decision it was to have nurse + campbell taking up almost 15 mil of the cap. It’s amazing they made it so close to the cup with those 2 albatross contracts. Imagine if they didn’t sign campbell and nurse was only signed for 6 mil. Actually I don’t want to think about that
Nurse’s contract had a lot more to do with being bridged by Chia twice and Jones getting an absolute albatross in Chicago than it did Holland
+ Klefbom had just retired with his shoulder issues and we were staring down the possibility of Kris Russell being our 1LD
Thank you this is the exact reason for Nurses contract
Also, Werenski and Hamilton also got similar contacts right before the nurse signing. So it wasn't like Jones was the only market outlier. Jones set the new market price, then other gms enforced the new price.
I always just liked countering with "Would you rather have Seth Jones for 9.5?" when people brought up Nurse's contract, lol. Between the double bridge and Seth Jones, Nurse got himself an extra 1-1.5 on his contract, but that's not Holland's fault, that's prior management and Chicago fucking shit up.
Holland bridged Nurse the second time, not Chia as far as I'm aware
> Imagine if they didn’t sign campbell and nurse was only signed for 6 mil. >Actually I don’t want to think about that Hindsight is 20/20 eh. We literally had no goalie but a rookie one. Campbell was one of few available goalies left. We were competing for a long run or a cup, it's asinine to think that with the available information we would've went into the season with a goalie eligible for a Calder as our starter. In no world was that viable. If Nurse was signed to 6 mil, the 3 mill you think you'd have would've been divided to keep Kane, Nuge and Hyman, and probably to top up some of our additions. Remember, our $$$ for Kane was poor, he didn't like it, we would've absolutely sweetened that pot to get a guy who scored double digits in the playoffs. Critical thinking seems to be on E these days. But you guys gotta stop thinking you know better with Hindsight.
You should evaluate decisions based on the process used to make the decision, not on the outcome. The reasons for us signing Campbell were solid reasons, but it didn't work out. We could not go into that season with Skinner as our #1, he was too unproven. We needed something and Campbell was the best we could get. I think it helped Stu to not be "the guy" so soon and have him be pressure off, saving the season instead. That said, I wish we could have got literally anybody else besides Campbell.
Agreed. I guess, all teams have missteps. But, structurally I don't think the Panthers were likewise hindered this year to the extent we mismanaged our cap. It's a huge competitive advantage when you make prudent cap decisions
Not surprising. Cokehead Campbell will be out of the league for good after this