A couple of hours before Game 4 against the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday night, the Edmonton Oilers recalled 22 year old defenseman Philip Broberg and 32 year old goaltender Jack Campbell from the American Hockey League after their AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, were eliminated from the 2024 Calder Cup Playoffs. Coincidentally, they played against L.A.’s AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign.
Broberg played 12 games for the Oilers in limited minutes in the regular season, putting up 2 assists and was a +5. I normally don’t like +/- as an individual stat, but that’s pretty impressive for him, considering that all Edmonton did for the first two months was allow goals galore. After being sent to Bakersfield, he put up 5 goals and 33 assists for 38 points in 49 games. He still has yet to win a permanent roster spot in the NHL since being a top 10 draft pick in 2019, but he has appeared in 10 career Playoff games for the Oilers. Should injuries on defense occur, hopefully his time with the Condors will translate to Edmonton’s chase for the Stanley Cup.
Campbell started in just 5 games for the Oilers in the regular season, and quite frankly, 5 games was all we needed to see at the time. He posted a 4.49 GAA and .873 SV% with Edmonton before being sent down to the AHL. In Bakersfield, he rejuvenated his play, going 18-13-1 with a 2.63 GAA and .918 SV%, including 3 shutouts. During Edmonton’s 16 game winning streak, I wrote an article contemplating the possibility of Campbell ever coming back to the Oilers this year. You can go back and read that at your leisure, but Hockey Gods forbid anything should happen to Stuart Skinner or Calvin Pickard, would he repeat his Game 4 heroics from last year’s first round multiple times over? We hope his recent confidence gain can help strengthen Edmonton’s goaltending depth in a massive way. What a comeback story that would be.
