June 30, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers bought out the remaining three years of Jack Campbell’s contract on Sunday. Campbell originally signed a five-year, $25 million contract with the Oilers on June 13, 2022.

The #Oilers have placed goaltender Jack Campbell on unconditional waivers for the purpose of a buyout. pic.twitter.com/lXb1UmGTi3

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) June 30, 2024

Campbell had an .888 save percentage and a 3.41 goals against average in 36 appearances in his first season with the Oilers in 2022-23. He had a great exhibition season last fall, and earned the opening night start for the 2023-24 season. That was short lived. He allowed four goals on twelve shots in an 8-1 drubbing at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks. Campbell ended up with an .873 save percentage and a 4.50 GAA in just five appearances with the Oilers last year.

Related: Oilers Send Campbell to AHL, Recall Pickard

He spent the rest of the season in AHL Bakersfield after being waived last November. Campbell did see an improvement in his time with the Bakersfield Condors. He put up a .918 save percentage and a 2.63 GAA in 33 regular season appearances, and he allowed five goals in a playoff loss to the Ontario Reign.

Regardless of how well Campbell played in Bakersfield, the reality of the situation was that Campbell was always on his way out of the organization after he was waived and sent down last year. Skinner is the undoubted organizational number one goalie, and he has been for quite some time. I felt that the Oilers giving him every start in the 2023 playoffs answered any doubts about the goaltending hierarchy in Edmonton. They also can’t keep taking starts away from up and coming goaltending prospect Olivier Rodrigue. 

Former Oilers GM Ken Holland was always active at the trade deadline in his five year tenure. While those trades added depth for playoff runs, it also depleted the available draft picks that could be used in other trades such as a potential Campbell trade. They obviously tried to trade Campbell rather than buying him out, but a trade did not come to fruition before Sunday’s deadline to place players on waivers for the purpose of a buyout. They simply did not have the resources to incentivize teams to take on the remaining three years of Campbell’s contract at a $5 million cap hit.

The Oilers’ cap situation is too tight to have a player with a $5 million cap hit buried in the minors. The Oilers have a long list of impending unrestricted free agents that they would like to re-sign, and they also have areas of need that they should be trying to improve via free agency. Campbell’s contract was the one they could afford to get rid of without impacting the quality of the roster that got them to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. 

That made the buyout the only option to get out from under Campbell’s contract. Here is the buyout structure for Campbell’s contract according to PuckPedia:

The #LetsGoOilers are buying out the final 3 years @ $5M Cap Hit on Jack Campbell's contract. Buyout cap hit:

Year 1 $1.1M ($3.9M savings)
Year 2 $2.3M ($2.7M savings)
Year 3 $2.6M ($2.4M savings)
Years 4, 5, 6: $1.5M Cap Hit (cost)https://t.co/SQEEliFTOF pic.twitter.com/VWxcvGSl2N

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) June 30, 2024

Just as the Oilers are entering the final year of the James Neal buyout, they are now staring down the barrel of another six years of dad cap space due to a buyout of a bad contract. That dead cap space is frustrating because of the team’s tight cap situation. The impending contract extensions of Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and Evan Bouchard make every little bit of cap space valuable, and this buyout doesn’t help the situation.

Related: Moving Campbell is the MOST IMPORTANT Thing for the Oilers

I believe that the Campbell contract was one of Holland’s worst decisions as Oilers GM, if not the worst one. I understand why Campbell was signed. He had an unbelievable season going in 2021-22 before he got hurt, and he was comfortable playing in the pressure cooker that was the Toronto market. Mike Smith’s career was ending, Mikko Koskinen’s contract had expired, and the Oilers’ only signed goalie was an unproven Skinner. 

Skinner showed signs of being a really good goaltender in the 2021-22 season though. The Oilers just didn’t fully know what they had in Skinner. I personally would’ve gone after a goalie that could’ve played in a tandem with Skinner for two or three years on a cheaper contract rather than giving Campbell the big pay day. The Campbell contract had two possible outcomes: blocking Skinner’s path to a starter’s job, or the outcome we’re seeing now. Neither were desirable outcomes. 

If Campbell had worked out, then it wouldn’t have mattered, but he didn’t work out. The Oilers signed that contract knowing that he was dealing with an injury, and that his performance dipped significantly at the end of the 2021-22 season after that injury. There was always a strong chance that Campbell would not regain his fantastic form after the injury, and that’s exactly what played out. Now, the Oilers have to face six years of a dead cap hit during the prime years of McDavid and Draisaitl.

The bright side is that the Oilers just gained $3.9 million in cap space. They now sit at $12,933,333 in cap space after the Campbell buyout and Saturday’s contract extension of backup goalie Calvin Pickard. They also made qualifying offers to Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg along with Raphael Lavoie, James Hamblin, and Noel Hoefenmayer on Sunday. Holloway and Broberg will surely be on the opening night roster next season, and Hoefenmayer will definitely be with the Condors; but the destinations of Lavoie and Hamblin, both of whom saw time with the big club last season, are up in the air.

The Campbell buyout offers more flexibility for CEO Jeff Jackson for the start of the free agency period on Monday. The Oilers have several unrestricted free agents that they would like to sign including Adam Henrique, Warren Foegele, Connor Brown, Mattias Janmark, Corey Perry, Sam Gagner, Sam Carrick, and Vincent Desharnais. I’m not sure that they can get all of these players re-signed and make upgrades to the roster, but the Campbell buyout helps the cause in the immediate term.

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