The Edmonton Oilers signing goaltender Jack Campbell to a five-year, $25M last season has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. After a terrible first season and a brutal start to this year, Campbell had found himself with the Oilers' AHL team - where he's still been struggling greatly. Now, an Oilers insider has revealed the team's plan in response to Campbell's AHL struggles.
Campbell has now played 9 games with the Bakersfield Condors, and posted a brutal 3.22 goals against average and .894 save percentage. With the Oilers still in desperate need of wins, the team can't risk playing a goaltender who is clearly struggling at the AHL level.
Just weeks ago, it was believed that the team would be calling back up to the NHL level. Now according to Oilers' writer Mark Spector, the team has essentially resigned to the fact that Campbell is no longer an NHL goaltender, and have decided he'll continue to play in the AHL indefinitely. Currently, it would be too expensive to trade assets to another team to take Campbell and his contract, so the Oilers will address this in the offseason.
It's a truly shocking conclusion to Campbell's time in Edmonton. When he was signed just last year, it was hoped Campbell would bring stability to the crease in Edmonton that had been sorely needed. Now, the Oilers are as helpless as they've ever been in net, and they have a $5M anchor playing indefinitely in the minors to boot.
