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OHL: Jack Campbell taking Soo Greyhounds’ struggles hard
To know anything about goalie Jack Campbell is to know he puts everything on himself when his team losses. That quality, once he learns to channel it, might serve him well in his later career.
Right now, in the context of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds struggling since GM Kyle Dubas swapped eight picks, players and prospects to acquire the three-time world junior goaltender from the Windsor Spitfires, it's hard to watch. You couldn't script this way: Campbell made his return to Windsor on Sunday and the result, a 3-2 Spitfires win, pushed the 'Hounds out of the Western Conference playoff picture.
As you might have guessed, Campbell took it pretty hard, knowing the 'Hounds are increasingly flirting with loss of face if they end up missing the playoffs with a lineup that includes 10 players in either their age-19 or overage seasons. Tacked on to Team USA's seventh-place faceplant at the IIHF under-20 championship earlier this month, it has been a rough ride of late. From Bob Duff:
"It was a big game," Campbell said quietly after Sunday's setback at the WFCU Centre, his first game there as the visiting goaltender.
"We needed the two points, and we didn't get it."
Spitfires coach Bob Boughner wasn't the least bit surprised to learn of Campbell's tight-lipped responses to questioners.
In fact, he'd experienced it himself only moments earlier.
"I just saw Jack in the hallway," Boughner said. "Obviously, he was disappointed. We said, 'Hi,' and that was about it.
"Jack probably takes losses harder than anybody I've seen in the last five or six years." (Windsor Star)
The Greyhounds' struggle is collective, of course. Campbell has a 3.34 goals-against average and .898 save percentage in a dozen games with Sault Ste. Marie. That's not exactly saviour stats, but it's also too small a sample to draw any definitive conclusions. The point of this is to highlight a gestating storyline in the OHL, the very strong possibility that after all of Dubas' go-big-or-go-home deals, Sault Ste. Marie could end up missing the playoffs — only now it's a realistic possibility instead of one of Bill Montague's doomsday predictions.
The Greyhounds, though, are just 6-17-2-2 since the high-water point of their season, when Campbell made 46 saves in a one-goal road win over London on Nov. 11. Since that night, the other three teams jockeying for those final three playoff berths, the Saginaw Spirit (13-10-0-4 since Nov. 12), Windsor (11-12-2-0) and Guelph Storm (11-13-1-4), have all produced a reasonable facsimile of .500 hockey.
As Duff put it:
It's quite feasible that when the finish line is reached in late March, one of Windsor or Sault Ste. Marie will be on the outside looking in.
Campbell, who holds dear to the many close bonds he formed during his time in Windsor, recognizes this fact of life.
"Yeah," he said, a faraway look in his eyes.
Things can change quickly in major junior hockey; one night's world-beater can be the next day's also-ran. The Greyhounds, at least by the numbers, haven't been up and down over the past two months; they've mostly trended down, whatever the reason. Whether Campbell can right the ship remains to be seen.
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet (photo: Mike Carroccetto).
