NEW YORK — There is a bead of blood slowly forming in the cut on Jack Campbell’s busted nose. If this interview goes much longer, his crisp, white shirt could be in danger.
The collegial Campbell is facing a scrum of reporters inside Manhattan’s Chealse Piers Ice Rink. The Zamboni is firing up, as Campbell’s folksy, “just one of the guys,” delivery reminds of Nuke LaLoosh in the movie Bull Durham.
“Boys are sharp out there,” he declares after a lengthy practice, from which he was among the last few players to leave the ice. “Shwartzy (goalie coach Dustin Schwartz) has been runnin’ through some great drills, and my game feels really good.
“I feel great.”
Ah, his game. What are the signs his game is as perky as the man describing it?
When he is “just havin’ some fun and stoppin’ a lot of rubber.”
Admittedly, the rubber he stopped while sitting on the bench Monday night in Newark wasn’t much fun, a ricochet off a defenceman’s stick that smoked him right on the bridge of the nose. It’s broken now, more evidence that flying hunks of frozen vulcanized rubber and handsome mugs like Campbell’s do not make good bedfellows.
“Right off my nose. Definitely not ideal, that’s for sure,” he smiled, absorbing just another bit of hard luck since arriving in Edmonton as a free agent this past summer.
The nose, it’ll heal.
His game, however, which he has spent nearly two weeks trying to cure prior to an expected start Wednesday against the New York Islanders, remains under intensive care.
Campbell hasn’t played in an NHL game since being ventilated for seven in Carolina on Nov. 10, a mental break after a less-than-ideal start to the season for his new team. Stuart Skinner’s fine play has afforded Campbell and the Oilers this early season do-over — a chance to re-set, and play like the starter the Oilers thought they were getting for that five-year, $25-million contract.
“It’s just taking a step back. Taking a breath, and going out and working on the game. Stopping pucks in practice. Ya know, just tightening up some details,” said the handsome 30-year-old. “I’ve kind of been through this, pretty much every year that I’ve played hockey. There are always ups and downs.”
He has been through this, surviving the mental warfare that comes with the tag “failed first-round draft pick,” and then ending up as another goaltending casualty in Toronto, where pressure on the ‘tendies is an equation that is squared, compared to any other market.
“Whenever you get through it, it makes you stronger,” Campbell reasons. “This is just going to make me stronger, mentally and physically.”
That’s the good news.
The bad news is, what if he doesn’t play any better after his re-start? Then what?
Zach Hyman, for one, won’t let the emotional Campbell travel down that road — for even a step.
“I talk to him all the time,” begins Hyman, a teammate dating back to 2020, when Campbell arrived in Toronto. “He's such a passionate guy. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He really, deeply cares about helping his teammates and making an impact.”
By “he wears his heart on his sleeve,” Hyman takes us into the world of culpability that Campbell inhabits. The one where Campbell takes not only his share of the blame in a loss, but everyone else’s share too.
From this place emerges quotes like the one Campbell issued after a bad game earlier this month: “I just haven't brought my best. Frankly it's just been pathetic the way I've been playing.”
Look, I love a strong, descriptive quote as much as the next scribe. But that one ran through the Oilers locker room with a strong air of concern, among a group of players who were — and still are — counting on Campbell to thrive under far more intense pressure come May and June.
“You know, hockey is not an individual sport by any means,” said Hyman, a calming voice of reason inside this troop. “It's the most team sport out there, where one guy is never at fault when you lose. It's the sum of the parts.”
Campbell has a sports psychologist. Truth be told, however, that person has not made enough progress with an 11-year pro whose mental game still raises questions.
“It’s a balance that I’m still learning,” Campbell admits. “You’ve got to be accountable, but you can’t be getting too down.”
What Campbell needs is something tangible. A couple of strong starts. A win or two.
Maybe a saves percentage that climbs out of the .800s and into the nines.
That’s where his teammates come in. Teammates who have, for most of his short tenure in Edmonton, all but abandoned him.
“For whatever reason,” Hyman said, “the starts he's been in, we've been poor in most of them. We definitely owe him a better showing.”
“We’ve got to help him out more,” agreed Leon Draisaitl. “I think he would be the first guy to agree that he can be better, but we have to — as a team — give him a game where he can find his game a little bit. Not get 40, 42 shots against, you know?
“We’ve got to find a way to help him out a little.”
Help Jack Campbell help himself.
Because you only get one chance to make a second impression. This has to start working soon.
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