December 17, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

Jack Campbell got pulled after allowing four goals on 21 shots for the Bakersfield Condors on Saturday night. Campbell now has a 3.46 GAA and an .888 save percentage in ten games for the Condors since being waived and sent down according to Hockey DB. It’s been over a month since Campbell was sent down to Bakersfield, and he still hasn’t found his game. That’s not the whole reason why moving Campbell’s contract is the most important thing for the Oilers right now though.

things continue to go very poorly for jack campbell in the ahl, allowing these three goals against in the first 28 minutes of a condors’ game tonight. pic.twitter.com/GZ2SludaIl

— zach (@zjlaing) December 17, 2023

The state of the Oilers goaltending has been discussed quite thoroughly. Skinner has played well lately, but he’s going to have the odd bad game. That’s the reality for any goaltender, especially a young one that the team has been running into the ground. 

It was good to see Pickard get a couple of starts this week because Skinner’s workload needs to be managed and it’s important to show trust in your players. There’s no point of having Pickard here if he isn’t trusted to play. He was good up until Saturday night, but the team in front of him let him down against the Florida Panthers.

Sure, it would be great if Ken Holland could make a trade to improve the goaltending. It would be nice to get an upgrade on Cody Ceci on the second pairing, and it would be nice to get a top six right winger as well since Connor Brown isn’t producing. The problem is that there’s no cap space. They need to move money out in order to add another player. Yell and scream at Holland for poor cap management all you want, but that’s the reality of the situation at hand.

The sensible thing to do from an asset management perspective would be to hope that Campbell figures out his game soon. I don’t want to be negative and put limits on him, but there’s no guarantee that he will figure it out. Cal Peterson is a great example of that. He had two years left on a contract with the same AAV that Campbell has when the Los Angeles Kings waived him and sent him down to the AHL last year. He played 40 games for the Ontario Reign, and then was part of a trade to the Philadelphia Flyers. He’s played two NHL games this season. It cost the Kings Sean Walker and a first round pick to move Peterson.

Despite the likely cost of doing so, I think that the best thing the Oilers could do right now is to move Campbell. They might have to bite the bullet on this one.

Related: Oilers Send Campbell to AHL, Recall Pickard

If the Oilers want an upgrade on Pickard as the backup, then Campbell’s contract makes the most sense to move because Campbell’s is the only money that they can move without impacting the current roster. They could move Ceci or Brett Kulak, but then they would also have a hole to fill on defence. That really wouldn’t save the Oilers any cap space, unless a suitable replacement near the league minimum could be found. No, Philip Broberg does not appear to be that option right now.

The cap space gained from moving Campbell could be used to get another goalie and/or to get an upgrade on the right side of the defence, but I believe that it would be tremendously unwise to spend ALL of that cap space this season if the Oilers were to move Campbell.

The reason for that is Brown’s performance bonus. Brown earned a $3.225 million performance bonus for playing in at least ten games this season. The Oilers don’t have $3.225 million in cap space, so whatever amount of that performance bonus that can’t be squeezed under this year’s cap spending will get tacked onto next year’s cap spending. For example, if the Oilers finish the season with $100,000 in cap space, then $3.125 million will be added to next year’s cap spending.

The NHL salary cap is set to rise by $4.15 million next season. Most of that increase has already been spent because of Brown’s performance bonus. However, if the Oilers could find a way to decrease their cap spending this season, then they could save themselves some cap space next season as well. The less they spend this season, the lower the impact that Brown’s performance bonus will have next season.

PuckPedia shows the Daily Tracker, which tracks the amount spent on each player per day throughout the season. Campbell’s is a complicated case because he counted for his full $5 million AAV up until November 8, but has only been counting at $3.85 million since being sent down to Bakersfield. PuckPedia tells us that Campbell has an accumulated cap hit of $1,517,187 as of Saturday. If he were to stay in Bakersfield for the rest of the season, then his season-ending accumulated cap hit would be $4,023,968.

The difference between those two numbers is what the Oilers could have saved by trading Campbell on Saturday. The NHL season is 192 days long this season. If you divide Campbell’s $3.85 million cap hit by 192, you get his daily cap hit, which is $20,052. 

Campbell’s accumulated cap hit on Sunday will be $1,537,239. If you subtract that from his projected accumulated cap hit of $4,023,968, you get $2,486,729. That’s how much cap savings the Oilers would actually get from moving Campbell on Sunday. That’s also how much more they could save on Brown’s performance bonus NEXT season. That amount is shrinking by the day, so the Oilers would be smart to move Campbell as soon as possible.

Moving Campbell’s contract would also create $5 million more in cap space that could be spent next season, which would help to absorb the remainder of Brown’s performance bonus and to be able to make other improvements to the roster. It would be expensive to move Campbell’s contract; but given the “win now” mode of the team and the potential impact it could have on next year’s cap space, the asking price will be worthwhile to move Campbell’s contract.

It would be okay for the Oilers to use SOME of the potential cap space gained from moving Campbell to address other needs. It would be okay to get a cheaper goalie and to send Pickard down. The impact of that spending difference could be minimal if the goalie acquired has a low to low-ish cap hit like Mackenzie Blackwood, Karel Vejmelka, or Antti Raanta. They could also trade Ceci and get a slightly more expensive right-handed defenceman for the second pairing if they so chose as well. Brett Pesce could become an option if the Carolina Hurricanes fall out of the playoff race by the deadline. My point is that trading Campbell for another $5 million goaltender isn’t the best course of action.

Moving Campbell’s contract is the clearest path to any kind of roster flexibility in the next two seasons, and it needs to happen soon to maximize the benefit of making the move.