Jack Campbell, shown here playing for the US National Under-18 Team, was taken by the Dallas Stars with the 11th pick in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft on Friday. (Photo Credit: jenswessling)
Special thanks to “jenswessling” of Flickr for use of the photo of Jack Campbell.
The Dallas Stars decided that goaltender Jack Campbell was too good to pass up when he fell to them at the 11th pick, and passed on several highly-touted young defensemen to name the young netminder their first-round pick. Campbell, who just turned 18 in January, shows a lot of promise and Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk and the front office felt he was a more important piece for the future than any other position player available at that time.
“Our guys have loved this guy from the start and we just said if he was available at number 11, we couldn’t let him go,” said Nieuwendyk told the Dallas Morning News. “We viewed this that after Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin, Jack Campbell had the next best chance to be a franchise player.”
Hall and Seguin went first and second overall, respectively, to the Edmonton Oilers and Boston Bruins. There is a lot of pressure on Hall to step in immediately and help a franchise who has struggled for the past five seasons. Seguin is expected to be a big piece of the Boston lineup for years to come, but doesn’t have the same pressure to come in and immediately perform. They will take their time in developing him in their system. The same will probably be true of Campbell. The Stars don’t need to rush him along, and probably won’t have any plans to do so.
Campbell was originally slated to attend the University of Michigan in the fall, but is going to forgo the US collegiate system, and will play for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires next season. Dallas’ top pick last year (#9 overall), Scott Glennie, played in the OHL last season (with the Brandon Wheat Kings). I imagine that Campbell will see at least 2 more years of development before even being given any consideration for play in Dallas.
So, why did the Stars draft Campbell instead of going for one of the two defensemen who were originally slated to go in the top five – Cam Fowler and Brandon Gormley? Or the defenseman many analysts felt the Stars would take if he were available at that spot, Derek Forbort? When two defenseman that were rated in the top five fall to the eleventh spot, there is some obvious concern that there is a problem with aspects of their game, or health issues. But, nothing came out after the fact about these concerns. What may be concerning to the Stars, in the future, is that all three of those defensemen went to division rivals – Fowler to Anaheim, Gormley to Phoenix and Forbort to Los Angeles. There’s a good chance at least one of these defenseman will be a top pair guy.
But, the Stars insist that Campbell is the guy they’ve had their eyes on all along, and if he was available, they were going to take him. They consider him to be the franchise goalie of the future, which is high praise for an 18 year old. The TSN mock draft had him going at number 8 to Atlanta, by the way, so it’s not that Dallas picked a guy out of nowhere.
Here’s some more information about Jack Campbell, from the NHL’s Draft Prospects page:
• Campbell won a gold medal with Team USA at the 2010 World Junior Championships. He entered the championship game against Canada in the second period with a 3-0 deficit — he stopped 32 out of 34 shots helping the U.S. win in overtime.
• He also helped lead the U.S. to back-to-back gold medals at the 2009 and 2010 Under-18 World Championships. He led the 2010 tournament with a .965 save-percentage and 0.83 goals-against average, posting three shutouts and was selected ad the Top Goaltender.
• Originally slated to attend the University of Michigan, he will play for the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires in 2010-11.
• Campbell got his start in hockey watching his cousin, Marshall Campbell (who later player football at Michigan), play goal and he fell in love with the position. He started playing goalie full-time when he was nine years old after a failed attempt by his dad, uncle and youth hockey coach to try and convince him not to be a goalie.
• A champion at 12, he won the Quebec International Peewee tournament with Little Caesars – he played his minor hockey first with the Blue Water Stars, then Little Caesars before joining Honeybaked for his final two years of minor hockey.
And, here’s the interview with the young goalie after the first round wrapped up:
And, lastly, here’s the press release from the Dallas Stars about their pick:
***
MONTREAL – The Dallas Stars selected goaltender Jack Campbell with the 11th overall pick in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft Friday evening, held in Los Angeles at Staples Center.
Campbell, 18, spent this past season with the U.S.- National Under-17 team (USHL), playing 11 games with a 6-3-1 record with a 2.21 GAA and a .917 save percentage. The Port Huron, MI native also represented the U.S. at the 2010 Under-20 and both the 2010 and 2009 Under-18 Championships, helping the U.S. win gold at all three tournaments.
The 6-3, 175-pound goaltender posted a combined 11-2 record with five shutouts at the 2009 and 2010 World Under-18 Championships. Campbell was named the goaltender of the tournament in 2010. In the 2010 Under-20 Championship, he was called from the bench to replace the starting goaltender in the second period of the championship game against Canada and held on to defeat the Canadians on their home ice. He went 2-1-0 in the tournament with one shutout with a 2.54 GAA and a .923 save percentage.
In 2008-09, Campbell posted a 14-6-1 record with a 2.21 GAA and a .917 save percentage with the U.S. – National Under-18 team (NAHL). He is set to play for the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) next season.
Jack Campbell Statistics
What They’re Saying About Jack Campbell:
“”He’s got good size, doesn’t beat himself and his positioning is very good. He has good quickness in recovery, but he’s not all over the place. He’ll make the saves.” – AL Jensen, Central Scouting.
“Campbell is, by all accounts, an incredible teammate with character and leadership and game-stealing capabilities, the traits scouts look for in a franchise-type netminder. It’s said he’s off-the-scale confident but not cocky and he works as hard in practice to shut out teammates as he does in a game and that he’s a goal-oriented individual who will settle for nothing less than being a dominant goalie at the NHL level.” – Bob McKenzie, TSN Hockey Insider.
“Very good technique and exceptionally confident. Campbell is a big-game goalie.” – Hockeysfuture.com
“Jack has size, athleticism and he is fundamentally sound. He’s won on the big stage at both the World Under-18 and World Junior Championships.”- Joe Exter, U.S. U-18 Goaltending Coach
