Florida's Gregory Campbell: finished with Panthers?
by Donny Rivette on Mar 25, 2010 10:58 AM EDT
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PrintAnd down goes Soup. According to the Miami Herald, Panthers forward Gregory Campbell may be done for the season, nursing a broken bone in his foot, sustained March 20th against Buffalo. Of course, "Soup" is putting the best possible light on the injury: "It's a broken bone, but once I can put on the skate and push off and feel confident on my stop and starts, then I can come back."
But will his team ultimately go another route?
Campbell was in the midst of his best stretch of the year with 4 assists (+3) in his past four games. He was on pace to break his best month of the season so far (2g-4a in January), which is by no means what was expected of the center coming into the 2009-10 campaign. 32 points a year ago was a benchmark, playing what some may brand as beyond his projections as a career third or fourth line pivot. Needless to say, it simply hasn't been repeated.
His pugilistic skills have not gone unnoticed, nor unused: 53 penalty minutes in sixty games places him on par with numbers from twelve months ago (NHL career-high 76 in seventy-seven appearances. However, Nick Tarnasky has - for now - run with role, and quite effectively.
A restricted free agent in July, it's difficult to predict what Panthers general manager Randy Sexton has in store for Campbell; as usual, much will depend upon price (current salary is $762,500) and what direction he may wish to drive the club.
There is competition for the roster spot: Shawn Matthias has impressed lately and Cats' management is under extraordinary outside pressure to acquire a true first-line center over the summer. Assuming this happens, the top four Florida centers would be Stephen Weiss, Steven Reinprecht, Matthias, and unnamed-hoped-for acquisition.
Which opens another can of worms: as a "skill" player, is it not a horrible waste having Matthias grinding on the third or fourth line?
Anyway, Cats at Habs tonight...Live Game Forum fires up around 6ish.
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Whats to say that Matty doesn’t make it to the third line? The best teams have scoring depth or at least scoring potential on all four lines. Part of what made the Cats successful last year was the scoring threat from the CPR line as the 3rd line on the team, and Souply was a large part of that last year. This year for whatever reason, the scoring luck or touch has not been there for Soup, Kreps, and to a lesser extent even Dvorak. Even when these guys were given increased ice time, the production didn’t follow!
Yea, depth doesn’t worry me, considering that’s what makes Washington such a threat on offense. They’ve got Backstrom, Morrison, Belanger, and Steckel at C on that roster. Any of which would be either a lateral move or an improvement over our 2nd line and lower starters at Center. So if we do acquire a #1 Center, and have Weiss, Reinprecht and Matthias behind him, I would like that very much.
Forgetting my two-penny response above, the premise is that FLA would obtain a #1 center, bumping Weiss to the second, leaving Rhino and Matty fighting over the last two spots. Certainly conceivable Matty would earn a role on the third, but paying Reinprecht for fourth-line duty at $2.175M is a bit excessive. Especially when Matthias will be approaching RFA status in a year.
by Donny Rivette on Mar 25, 2010 2:57 PM EDT up reply actions
Well, yeah, but we’re overlooking the idea that either Campbell or Reinprecht plays at center. Both have played at wing, and I could see one of them moving. Say if we get that first line center…
Booth/Frolik-????-Horton
Stillman-Weiss-Frolik/Booth
Dvorak-Matthias-Reinprecht
McArdle-Campbell-Repik?
Also, don’t discount that Weiss could be part of that trade. Don’t count on anyone still being here besides Booth, Horton, Kulikov and Dvorak. And I’m not even sure about Horton. I left Olesz out of those lines because I don’t expect him to be here next year.
Anyway, as for Campbell, I don’t think they’ll worry as much about having too many centers as much as if he doesn’t ask for a lot of money he’s a popular guy who works hard and is a good penalty killer. It’s important to have third line guys you can put on the penalty kill because it helps your top line guys get a rest.
When he’s playing well, Kreps is good on the penalty kill, but the guy’s too streaky. Even when Campbell’s not scoring, he’s still good defensively. That’s what I think will earn him a contract over Kreps.
Florida Panthers: Giving the league a punching bag since 2000.
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