Editor’s note: Not so long ago, the Stars were at a crossroads in net. A franchise stalwart was on the way out, and questions abounded about the future in goal. A veteran with promise was on the way, but the most exciting solution—the backbone of playoff runs to come—presented itself early in the NHL Draft. Rare is the first-round goaltender who makes good, but this player was different: a tall, left-catching player from the Midwest who checked every box when it came to physicality.
I’m talking, of course, about Jack Campbell.
Seven years before Dallas selected Jake Oettinger 26th overall in the now-legendary 2017 draft class (which also included Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson), the Stars spent the 10th overall selection in the 2010 draft on Campbell, an 18-year-old from Michigan who became the highest-drafted goaltender in half a decade.
It failed miserably. But why?
That’s one of many subjects Stephen Meserve and StrongSide’s Sean Shapiro tackle in their new book about the Dallas Stars’ AHL affiliate, We Win Here: The Definitive Essays You Need About the Texas Stars, which you can buy here. In this excerpt, Shapiro explores what went wrong with Campbell (now with the Edmonton Oilers) and how the lessons learned helped Dallas get it right with Oettinger.
Because, ultimately, the Stars were right. A first-round goaltender will shepherd Dallas into its next era of contention. It’s just not the one the franchise expected.
There’s a fleeting, frozen moment I often go back to when thinking about the Texas Stars.
It’s April of 2014. I’m sitting at a Kia dealership in Austin waiting for an oil change, and there’s a livid—and fair!—Twitter discourse evolving on whether Jack Campbell or Cristopher Nilstorp should be starting Game 1 of the Calder Cup playoffs.
Campbell was the goalie of the future; he had recently posted back-to-back shutouts near the end of the regular season. His regular season numbers were impeccable at 1.49 goals against average and .942 save percentage in 16 games.
But Nilstorp had been the Texas Stars’ workhorse because of Campbell’s injuries, and he played 45 games, had a 2.45 GAA and .918 SV%.
Texas coach Willie Desjardins decided to split the goaltending baby, planning to rotate starts as Texas went into the first round against the Oklahoma City Barons.
It wasn’t the wrong decision. Texas eventually won the Calder Cup, but I often go back to that decision and wonder “what if?”
What if Campbell had been given the net for Game 1 and been allowed to run with it?
How much would the trajectory of Stars—Texas and Dallas—be altered? Is there an alternate reality where Jack Campbell is now the bona fide No. 1 in Dallas, as he was drafted to be, because of a different decision on April 23, 2014?
Maybe.
And what would have happened if Campbell hadn’t gotten hurt in the second round against the Grand Rapids Griffins?
With how Campbell was playing in the first two rounds, even with rotated starts, Desjardins had made the internal decision to give him the net for the Western Conference finals—no more rotation necessary. But Campbell got hurt, Nilstorp won Game 6 against Grand Rapids, and the Swede held the net for the rest of the championship run.
It’s the moment, sadly, that derailed Campbell’s trajectory in Dallas.
Campbell was the big-game goalie that needed validation. He needed that golden moment as a pro early in his Dallas tenure. He should have built on a personal Calder Cup run and gone into the offseason motivated by success, not scared of having to prove himself.
Nilstorp, to be clear, isn’t the bad guy here.
In fact, he was part of the perfect AHL goalie roster construction.
The ideal AHL roster consists of two goalies: the young, NHL-focused prospect, and the veteran who can check the box as organizational No. 3 if needed, understands his role, and if that young prospect falters, can be the guy that saves the rest of the prospects from a lousy, losing environment.
Nilstorp did that over the course of two seasons with the Texas Stars more than admirably. Until Mike McKenna’s run with Texas during the 2017-18 season, Nilstorp was the veteran gold standard Texas GM Scott White sought to replace.
McKenna understood his role perfectly. He was there as a teacher and a de facto second goalie coach, working with younger goalies on both technique and puckhandling (his NHL career was never long enough for McKenna to get his proper due in this space). When the Stars turned to Landon Bow in the playoffs for a game, McKenna understood the process of development. It’s one of the reasons he had such a lengthy AHL career and never had to seek greener pastures in Europe.
When Bow couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain, McKenna came to the rescue in Game 3 of the opening series, entering in relief and making 44 saves on 44 shots into double overtime before Samuel Laberge scored to give Texas the victory. The next game he stopped 47 shots in 1-0 shutout victory to close out the series, a 91-save master class that is arguably the greatest back-to-back, two-game goaltending performance in franchise history.
McKenna took Texas to Game 7 of the Calder Cup Finals against a loaded Toronto Marlies team. Because of his performance, Texas was able to squeeze out every last piece of development from an AHL season—even with the hard lessons of scratching Denis Gurianov in the championship series.
But let’s go back to 2014 and the aftermath of Patrik Nemeth’s Calder Cup-winning goal in Newfoundland.
There was a championship rally in the then-named Cedar Park Center. Willie Desjardins wasn’t present because he was interviewing for his eventual NHL job with the Vancouver Canucks.
Toby Petersen was announcing his retirement. While on crutches, he hoisted a final trophy before the crowd. Brenden Ranford was getting real with the audience after more than a couple brews—Ranford, by the way, made sure the cup made it to its next stop and rode along with friend of the program Alex Stivers to the afterparty.
And Nilstorp was there, in sunglasses and the Swedish version of a bolo hat. He had a miniature Buddha statue with him.
He was the spitting image of an eccentric goalie and one that was effectively saying his farewell to North America. He came to the AHL, he conquered, he and his Buddha had already signed a deal to return to Sweden.
He was gone, he was happy, leaving memories of a championship, a huge save in Game 7 against the Toronto Marlies, and 100 Degree Hockey properly hopping all over the catchphrase, ‘Angry Swede,’ even printing a couple shirts after Nilstorp got into some post-whistle scrummage.
Nilstorp was ready to leave the crease to Campbell.
But Jack never took it.
The next season, tasked with being THE guy, he faltered. He spent time in the ECHL in consecutive seasons and was unceremoniously traded to the Kings for Nick Ebert.
The positive memories of him in Texas became more about his personality and charity. He once helped with a fan’s marriage proposal on the ice after a game, he once gave his draft-day hat, which was with him in the Texas locker room, to the child of a military member who had recently been deployed—say what you want about the goalie, but it’s hard to find any flaw with Jack Campbell the human.
And he was able to save his career. He’s been the NHL starter for three other organizations since, but he was never able to deliver on his promise in Dallas.
It’s fitting that, because of logistical reasons, Campbell missed out on having his day with the Calder Cup in the summer of 2014.
Campbell’s failure, or the organization’s failure to develop him, comes with some oft-forgotten nuance.
From the time he arrived in Texas at the end of the 2011-12 season, Campbell was often alone in the crease. While NHL teams now invest heavily in goaltending development at all levels, AHL goalie coaches were still more of an exception than the rule. Oftentimes the goalie coach was a part-timer that would just visit from the NHL club, or an old NHLer, who wasn’t trained as a coach, semi-volunteering to help out with practices.
Then Dallas Stars goalie coach Mike Valley was tasked with keeping an eye on AHL development, while also working closely with NHL goalie Kari Lehtonen. Lehtonen was the priority. This was the organizational mandate, and Valley’s time with Campbell was limited to the occasional practice.
The Stars shuffled things slightly going into the 2015-16 season, hiring Jeff Reese to take over as the goalie coach, and moving Valley to a Director of Goaltending Development role, but this role still wasn’t an AHL goalie coach. In fact, it focused more heavily on scouting and still assisting with NHL goalies than being the full-time voice for Campbell.
And when Campbell faced career adversity, like he did during the 2015-16 season, he was forced to figure it out himself. His confidence was shot, and while he thrived in the ECHL with the Idaho Steelheads, it was more proof that Campbell simply needed a fresh start and a reset away from the Stars organization.
Part of this can be blamed on the organization; part of it can be blamed on Campbell.
And that’s OK. For both sides, it was the classic case where a split was the best move for both parties, the truly mutual breakup.
It took some time, but the Stars also learned from mistakes they made with Campbell. So when they were ready to try and draft a goalie in the first round again, despite some outside fears about doing so, a proper system was going to be in place.
When the Stars drafted Jake Oettinger in 2017, 26th overall, they were able to be more patient with a goalie coming out of college. Oettinger played three seasons at Boston University, didn’t rush to become a pro and signed with Dallas after his junior season, making an AHL cameo in the spring of 2019 on an ATO.
During the 2019-20 season, before COVID shuttered the world, Oettinger had a dedicated goalie coach in the AHL with Jim Bedard. It wasn’t so much about the technical aspects, but the simple commitment of having a coach full-time attending to AHL goalies was a major step in the right direction.
The 2020-21 season was weird. The AHL season only sort-of happened—the Calder Cup wasn’t awarded, three AHL teams went on hiatus, and Texas only played 38 games. Oettinger spent that season in the NHL, playing 29 games, but still needed some Texas seasoning as the No. 1.
That’s why Dallas went out of its way to make Oettinger an AHL goalie before the 2021-22 season. They signed Braden Holtby, adding another veteran to block his path, and sent Oettinger to Texas, with a new full-time goalie coach in Ryan Daniels, allowing the first-round pick to think and act like a starter in Cedar Park.
The plan worked. Oettinger himself admits as much. Instead of being rushed to NHL No. 1 status, he was able to continue to refine his game and find some normalcy in his pro career. Those 10 AHL games were the springboard Oettinger needed to go from top prospect to potential Vezina candidate in the future.
A little bit of patience, learning from the past, and embracing the goaltending development model. What the Stars missed with Campbell, they installed for Oettinger and made sure a first-round investment wasn’t wasted and traded away for an AHL depth defenseman.
This wasn’t a new problem or even a Texas Stars problem that Dallas had to solve. Since the NHL franchise moved from Minnesota to Dallas, there was always a challenge developing and growing a goalie from within to be the No. 1 in Dallas.
Before Oettinger, Marty Turco was the only true homegrown and drafted Dallas Stars starter, all the rest were either acquired via trade or free agency (Ed Belfour, Lehtonen, Ben Bishop) or traded away (Mike Smith) before they ever had the chance to be the No. 1 in Dallas.
It’s made the Texas crease a revolving door over the years of AHL veterans, what-if prospects, and the occasional conditioning stint. As of this writing, 30 goalies have played at least one game for Texas, 17 have posted shutouts, including names like Allen York—who only the most diehard Texas Stars fans will remember—but only one, Oettinger, has ever been deemed good enough to stop Dallas from looking outside the organization to fill the NHL crease beyond the occasional callup or injury-forced cup of NHL coffee.
It could have been Campbell; maybe it should have been. Or maybe, just maybe, Campbell never had a chance to make it in Dallas. Maybe the Stars, both in Texas and Dallas, needed to evolve in their goaltending approach, and only Campbell’s failure to deliver on the draft hype was enough to push a proper plan into action.
It’s one of the few spaces where Texas, during its AHL evolution, was more of a follower than a leader. When Campbell arrived in the Kings organization, the Ontario Reign had an AHL-dedicated goalie coach in Dusty Imoo. When Campbell played in the AHL All-Star game during the 2016-17 season, he wore No. 70 to honor his goalie coach and, frankly, the concept of being more hands-on with goalie development.
Coincidentally or not, Texas had its first full-time goalie coach the next season. A better system was finally being built.
