Examining 5 Goalie Options for Edmonton Oilers After Jack Campbell's Exit

It's a worst-case scenario come true for the Edmonton Oilers.

When Jack Campbell arrived as a free agent and signed a five-year, $25 million deal, it's a good bet that general manager Ken Holland and his staff were seeing a glass half full.

After all, the former first-round pick had shown glimpses of No. 1-starter stuff at various points of his stays with the Los Angeles Kings and Toronto Maple Leafs, and had won a career-high 31 games in 47 starts with Toronto during the 2021-22 season.

But the success hasn't translated from Ontario to Alberta.

Campbell was too often pedestrian during an initial season with the Oilers while losing his starting job to rookie Stuart Skinner, and it got so bad in year two that Edmonton placed the 31-year-old on waivers Tuesday. He'd cleared waivers by 2 p.m. Wednesday and will presumably be assigned to Bakersfield of the AHL.

Perhaps the best-case scenario for the Oilers would have been for Campbell and his $5 million annual salary to be headed elsewhere via a waiver claim, but the fact that he's still their property set the B/R hockey team to consider what other options the team might have.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop an idea of your own in the comments.

The Move: Hope Campbell Turns It Around in the AHL

Anyone who bleeds blue and orange will lean into this one.

Now that he's cleared waivers, Campbell will presumably report to the Bakersfield Condors, who will visit the Abbotsford Canucks on Thursday and Saturday before heading to Calgary to face the Wranglers for a pair of games next Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Condors are 4-2 in their first six games this season and have been particularly stingy on the defensive side of things, allowing just 10 goals overall and no more than three in any game. Their blue-line corps include seven of eight players standing 6'1" or taller and five of eight weighing in at 203 pounds or more.

So it's certainly feasible that Campbell heads down, gets a few starts, racks up some positive results behind a sturdy back line while generating some much-needed confidence, and heads back to Edmonton with a new lease on competitive life in the NHL.

If you're an Oilers fan, it's the lesser of all evils.

The Move: Trade for Boston's Linus Ullmark

OK, there's no one who's thinking this is a sure thing.

Or even a real thing, for that matter.

But no less an authority than ESPN's popular analyst John Buccigross took to the platform formerly known as Twitter to float the prospect—posed as a question to colleague Ryan Whitney—of a deal that'd ease Edmonton's goalie crisis by getting Linus Ullmark from the Boston Bruins.

Ullmark scooped up both the Jennings and Vezina trophies with a statistically spectacular 2022-23 season that included a 40-6-1 record with a 1.89 goals-against average and a .938 save percentage. As such, he'd certainly be the answer to the Oilers' goaltending prayers.

Oh, but the cost.

The trade suggestion would send none other than former MVP and scoring leader Leon Draisaitl (yes, that Leon Draisaitl) and Warren Foegele to the Northeast, while Ullmark would head west to Alberta along with teammate Jake DeBrusk, teenage center Matthew Poitras, recent draft pick Fabian Lysell, and Boston's first-round pick in the 2026 draft.

Both Ullmark and Draisaitl are on track to be unrestricted free agents after next season, which, for the latter anyway, is already a reality the Edmonton brass is trying to ignore amid their early-season woes. So the idea they'd voluntarily send him away before that doomsday hour arrives seems, regardless of the deal's merit, like a textbook non-starter.

The Move: Trade for Montreal's Jake Allen

This isn't the first time Jake Allen has drifted into the Edmonton consciousness.

The 33-year-old is a veteran of 380 starts across parts of 11 NHL seasons, and his name came up as an option prior to last season before the Oilers pulled the trigger on the Campbell pact. Sportsnet recently speculated on his fit in Edmonton as well.

He won between 22 and 33 games while with the St. Louis Blues from 2014-15 to 2017-18, but saw his status change after the arrival of youngster Jordan Binnington and has spent the last three seasons with the Montreal Canadiens following a preseason trade in 2020.

The numbers have suffered behind an intermittently awful defense, but a revival seems at least possible this season. The year has begun with Allen at 3-2-1 with a .910 save percentage, which, when compared to Campbell's atrocious start, makes him look like Ken Dryden.

He's owed $3.85 million for this season and next, which means the Oilers would have to move some salary—or have the Canadiens eat some—in order to get him.

The guess here, however, is that it probably won't happen. Sending out one inconsistent goaltender just to bring in another who's older doesn't represent an upgrade of any significance and likely won't be greeted well at Rogers Place if it actually occurs.

The Move: Trade for Anaheim's John Gibson

Had we been having this conversation in 2018, John Gibson would've been your guy.

The Anaheim goalie had his best statistical season in 2017-18, winning 31 times in 60 starts while also posting a career-best save percentage for a full season (.926) alongside a more than respectable 2.43 goals-against average.

He parlayed that run—which had yielded three straight seasons of 20-plus victories by then—into the eight-year, $51.2 million deal that'll pay him $6.4 million annually through 2027.

But that was then. And this is now.

These days, as the Ducks transition toward 23-year-old Lukas Dostal, Gibson is a high-mileage 30-year-old whose goals-against average has swelled beyond 3.00 in three of the last four seasons. His save percentage has dropped off, too, falling below .900 for the first time in his career in 2022-23 as he limped to a 14-31-8 record on the NHL's worst team.

Even with a strong (2.41 GAA, .921 save percentage) start this season, he's pricier than Campbell and clearly on the downside of a high-workload career that reaches back to 2014. Yet his reported unhappiness in Anaheim led to plenty of offseason speculation.

But if Holland is using his best judgment, he'll channel ex-American Idol star Randy Jackson and simply say, "It's gonna be a no from me, dawg."

The Move: Trade for Juuse Saros

The headline might have given it away.

But in case it didn't, here's the conclusion to be drawn:

Juuse Saros is the goalie the Oilers need to get and the deal Holland needs to make.

Why? It's simple.

He's 28 years old. He makes the same annual money as Campbell, though with one less year on his current contract. And not only has he been, but still is, an elite goaltender.

Saros has played at least 21 games in each of the last seven seasons and has never—read: never—posted a goals-against average higher than 2.70 or a save percentage lower than .914. And both of those numbers, incidentally, are still better than Campbell's career numbers.

A 4-6 start this season doesn't provide great optics, but the other numbers are still within range of typical levels. And if he were in Edmonton's goal crease rather than Campbell or Stuart Skinner, it's no stretch to think at least some of the pucks that reached the net would have been caught or steered away, which would change optics on the Oilers' dreadful start.

With his team already sitting eight points out of the final Western playoff spot, Holland needs a home run to save the season and his job. Packaging Campbell and a duffel bag full of draft picks, including a 2024 first-rounder if need be, might be enough to convince Barry Trotz to go all-in on a rebuild and make Saros available for a "Cup or bust" run in northern Alberta.

If nothing else, it's a call Holland at least has to make.