Defenseman Brian Campbell is 36 years old and he still can skate as well and as fast as most of the 18-year-olds who entered the league at draft time. He has talent and skill, as is evident by the fact he never failed to score more than 10 goals and 35 points in a season.
Brian Campbell, Milan Guerriero
Last season, at age 35, he played 70 games for Madrid, scored 11 goals and 35 points and he had more takeaways than giveaways. Just a few months later, however, “Soupy” is spending his days and nights in Venice, skating for the Milan Guerriero’s farm team. After a 19-game, 4-assist, minus-16 debut with the big club in Milan, Campbell was booted out of the lineup and he can’t seem to get back into it.
For all of Campbell’s assets, he has one glaring blemish that makes general managers hate his guts: his contract. The guy makes $7.14 annually and he has every season since the league began. GMs like Campbell the player, but they can’t stomach Campbell the contract. The only way Campbell’s previous owners have been able to clear that cap clog is to give up draft picks as part of a trade package. And they haven’t even gotten impact players in return.
The first time Campbell was traded was in Season 2 when Berlin sent him to Madrid. In return for the dynamic and talented defenseman, the Smurfs got a backup goalie. Erik Ersberg was 24 at the time and had yet to suit up for his first EURO League game. Doesn’t sound like a fair trade, does it? On top of that, they weren’t even traded for each other straight up. Berlin basically had to throw in a third-round draft pick to convince Madrid to take Campbell. That pick, by the way, was used to get Marko Dano.
Campbell played well for the Royals the next two-plus seasons, but he was still dragging that huge contract around with him. Since his last game in Madrid at the end of Season 4, Campbell has been traded twice. In the off season, Madrid found a willing trade partner in Copenhagen, where a major retooling was already under way. Madrid got some real players in the deal, as Trident General Manager Dylan Callow parted with Brooks Laich, Andrew Cogliano and Nick Holden. But what Callow really had his eye on was the first-round draft pick that Madrid had to include in order to make the deal work. That pick will be made in the next draft and Madrid is currently 7th overall, so it will likely be in the bottom half of first round.
As proof that Callow wanted the pick and that Campbell was a necessary evil in the trade, he made another deal three days later that sent Campbell packing again. To make that happen, Callow had to include a third-round pick and the return was only 25-year-old defenseman Jonathan Blum. So, a guy with 319 games played and 164 points was traded – along with a draft pick – for a guy who may not ever play a game in the league. But Milan had plenty of cap space and was willing to stick Campbell’s contract in storage for a year to get the third-round pick.
The takeaway of the Brian Campbell story is his agent has made him a very, very rich player … and a hot potato.
