Campoli: A quiet threat?

Last year was a really frustrating year for Campoli - and for us fans. A lot of us questioned what use this guy would be to us when he looked out of place a lot of the year. Clouston agreed and he was benched seven times in December.

Before we re-signed him this summer there were reports that Campoli was having sports hernia surgery and that he had played the entire year last year with one. Last summer I remember a lot of us had really high hopes for Campoli. I thought he could be a solid 40 point player in the NHL, I liked his pinches, his offensive game. His own zone coverage could use some work, but I figured he'd work out the kinks in the regular season.

Then he sucked pretty much all year for us and I saw a completely different player, the quickness was gone, the confidence was shot and his skating looked...off. The hernia explains a lot.

Now, apparently pain free, Campoli is doing what we thought he'd do last summer. He's putting points on the board and transitioning pucks wonderfully. Does this team need another mid-sized(6', ~200) defender? We found out in practice one, five seconds in that you can literally never have enough.

So, here's the thing, is Campoli playing with Gonchar all year? They've played them together all pre-season and Campoli has been the forgotten man quite a bit. Teams need to center on Gonchar because he's such a lethal player in terms of shot and in terms of jumping into the play - and if they're always staring at Gonchar, Campoli will have many opportunities to jump into the play. And if he's playing with Gonchar, he'll see a lot of time with Spezza, Michalek and Alfredsson.

And all that's done so far is net him 8 points in 4 games to (as of last night) take the lead in pre-season scoring in the entire league.

I'm starting to dislike predicting what player can or should get, but I don't think 40 points is completely out of question. And that would make him another legitimate option to put up points on our blueline.

Is Campoli the 'forgotten' one on our blueline?

If he can play (anything) like he has this preseason and sees top-4 minutes, a 40 point season is definitely do-able.
As long as he's paired with Gonchar or Karlsson, teams will have no choice but to key in on his partner, leaving him more open to do what he's done this preseason.

If he continues at this pace, we'll have to give him #4.

Speaking of which, they handed out jerseys at practice today and #19 was a Small; my kid needs a Large, and the choices were limited -- 4 or 5. He ended up with 5. Now I need to find a well-known forward who's worn that number.

Lecavalier. How could I forget

OK, harder challenge. Someone who played on the Senators.

Brad Shaw. Him and Phillips, and that's all.

Phantom Joe Malone, the only player to score 7 goals in a single game, wore #4 while playing for Quebec. Newsy Lalonde wore #4 for Montreal, as did Beliveau.

I can't find jersey numbers for the golden-age Senators.

wprager wrote:Lecavalier. How could I forget

OK, harder challenge. Someone who played on the Senators.

Taylor Hall also wears #4, not a Senator but you could sell your kid on that one.

I just did some quick numbers and campoli had 2goals and 6 assists tied for first on the sens in preseason with spezza (4 goals and 4 assists)

Hockeyhero22000 wrote:I just did some quick numbers and campoli had 2goals and 6 assists tied for first on the sens in preseason with spezza (4 goals and 4 assists)

http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=64600#?navid=nav-sts-pre

nhl.com has all the pre-season stats up.

stempniaksen wrote:

wprager wrote:Lecavalier. How could I forget

OK, harder challenge. Someone who played on the Senators.

Taylor Hall also wears #4, not a Senator but you could sell your kid on that one.

That's actually what he (my son) said in the dressing room. I half forgot that.

I never forgot Campoli, I said all along he would fill in for Kuba nicely and, even last year, I thought he was a better partner for Karlsson than Kuba ever was. Except he completely SUCKED in the first pre-season game he played.

SeawaySensFan wrote:I never forgot Campoli, I said all along he would fill in for Kuba nicely and, even last year, I thought he was a better partner for Karlsson than Kuba ever was. Except he completely SUCKED in the first pre-season game he played.

Yes he did. It was an inauspicious debut to say the least.

wprager wrote:If he continues at this pace, we'll have to give him #4.

Speaking of which, they handed out jerseys at practice today and #19 was a Small; my kid needs a Large, and the choices were limited -- 4 or 5. He ended up with 5. Now I need to find a well-known forward who's worn that number.

I'm assuming you want a well known forward from the recent era? Otherwise Boom Boom Geoffrion wore that number, as did Dit Clapper. (I had to look it up, I'm not some sort of Hockey jersey number almanac.)

Did find this neat website along my travels searching for the answer ( http://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/numbers.cgi?number=5&year=2007 ) where one can search the jersey number by year. In terms of forwards though, it doesn't look good. Matt Cullen wore the number for the NYR in 06-07. Former Sen Bruce Gardiner wore number 5 for the TBL in 1999-2000. Pretty sure that's it.

Although the other option is your son converts to Defense, then he can emulate the greats like Nik Lidstrom, Barret Jackman or even Brian Lee!!

Bass Destruction wrote:

wprager wrote:If he continues at this pace, we'll have to give him #4.

Speaking of which, they handed out jerseys at practice today and #19 was a Small; my kid needs a Large, and the choices were limited -- 4 or 5. He ended up with 5. Now I need to find a well-known forward who's worn that number.

I'm assuming you want a well known forward from the recent era? Otherwise Boom Boom Geoffrion wore that number, as did Dit Clapper. (I had to look it up, I'm not some sort of Hockey jersey number almanac.)

Did find this neat website along my travels searching for the answer ( http://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/numbers.cgi?number=5&year=2007 ) where one can search the jersey number by year. In terms of forwards though, it doesn't look good. Matt Cullen wore the number for the NYR in 06-07. Former Sen Bruce Gardiner wore number 5 for the TBL in 1999-2000. Pretty sure that's it.

Although the other option is your son converts to Defense, then he can emulate the greats like Nik Lidstrom, Barret Jackman or even Brian Lee!!

How could you sully Brian Lee's name by associating him with those has-beens Lidstrom and Jackman?

He played a few shifts on D in the sort-outs. I get a smile just remembering that. Although, to be fair, he did get better by the 3rd or 4th time out there. Since he only started hockey last year, skating is the weakest part of his game, and you can't play D if you're not a good skater.