Toronto Maple Leafs: Jack Campbell Rumours Picking Up Steam

The Toronto Maple Leafs are definitely moving on from Ilya Mikheyev, and it appears that they are also moving on  from Jack Campbell.

Ever since the Toronto Maple Leafs season ended to Tampa in the first round of this year’s playoffs, the speculation about goalie Jack Campbell has been growing by the day.

At first the rumour was that the Leafs were trying to sign him to a long-term contract for $5 million.  Or maybe it was that Campbell wouldn’t take anything less than five.  Who knows? That’s the nature or rumours – they are all over the place.

The through line on the rumours was clear though: the Leafs weren’t going to just hand Campbell the keys to the franchise.

Campbell has been a nice story with the Leafs, but every time you start to wonder if he’s for real, he gets hurt or goes into a tailspin.  His high-danger save percentage (near the bottom of a list of 75 starting goalies over the last three seasons) is like  a red flag saying “DO NOT COMMIT.”

Giving Campbell term or money seems like something opposite the Leafs would do in the Dubas/Shanahan era, where they seem fully committed to the concept of not spending a ton of assets or cap space on goalies who, in general,  are completely unpredictable.

So enter the rumours.

Toronto Maple Leafs, Jack Campbell and Some Hot Rumours

Jack Campbell was rumoured to be going to New Jersey in exchange for Mackenzie Blackwood.  That was yesterday.

$2.8 million for a 25 year old goalie with some probable upside seems like a way better bet to me than $5 million+  for a goalie who will turn 31 before next season is half over, and who has proved, at best, to be quite mercurial.

Today’s big rumour is that the Edmonton Oilers are interested.  Not sure where this one originated, it’s pretty much everywhere this morning.

As one of the NHL’s worst run teams, of course they are interested in Jack Campbell.   The Oilers – as I have written earlier – are an incredibly dumb team run by the NHL’s worst GM and do not appreciate what they have in Jessie Puljujarvi.

It seems almost too good to be true that a swap of unsigned players could help the Leafs so much, so I won’t even suggest that Puljujarvi for Campbell is a possibility.  As a UFA Campbell really only has a tiny bit of value in that whichever team traded for him would get to negotiate exclusively for a period.

But could Campbell be part of a package that gets Puljuarvi to the kind of team who knows how good he actually is?  Well if Ken Holland is still in charge (and he is) there is always the possibility of a sweet windfall when dealing with the Oilers.