Suggesting he’d been getting away with it for the past few seasons, Jack Campbell’s penchant for beating himself up over every single, little mistake finally caught up to him as a member of the Edmonton Oilers last season and it was a big reason he wound up having a lousy year by his typical standards. Saying he’s been spending a lot of time working on that aspect of his game, he’s looking forward to bouncing back this season, having fun, and playing up to the standards he knows he’s capable of.
When asked if he put too much pressure on himself last season to perform, Campbell was asked if he put the weight of the world on his shoulders. Campbell responded, “Ya, I mean, that’s something I’ve done my whole career and I somehow managed to get away with it up until last year.” He added, “Obviously, there was kind of an exclamation on it, it was no hiding last year, it kinda just showed me I needed to fix it and to learn from it.”
He said he spent a lot of time this summer working on the mental side of things and is looking forward to seeing the growth and enjoying the opportunity to play hockey for Edmonton. Sportsnet analyst Mark Spector asked if there was an element of Jack Campbell that needs to just forget and move on from bad goals, whether his fault or not. Campbell said he hit it right on the head and that needs to learn to just “forget”. “I love to judge myself pretty heavily and just letting that go and play hockey.” He said he still has the standard of trying to save every shot, but not lose a week’s worth of sleep over it.
When asked what kind of work he did in the off-season, he limited his answer to just having some really good people around him and just being himself, which was a lot of fun.
It will be fascinating to see how much of whatever work Campbell is doing on the mental side of his game improves. It was clear that when he was down on himself, he struggled. When he was feeling good about his game, he was tremendous. He’s looking forward to a new and improved version of himself teaming with Stuart Skinner and giving the Oilers the goaltending they need this season.
As for earning the job as the starter, he’s only focused on being ready to go so that he’s on his game with coach Jay Woodcroft chooses to put him in.
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