After a long wait, 27 year old defenceman Chris Campoli has found a landing spot, signing a one year deal with the Montreal Canadiens worth $1.75 million. Campoli spent his summer waiting for a call after Chicago walked away from his hefty arbitration award of $2.5 million. One cannot blame the Hawks for turning their head as they are tight on the cap and have a great amount of depth at the defensive position anyway. Campoli shows a decent amount of potential but not enough to give him money to be a surefire top four defenceman and power play weapon. I would expect him to be rotated in and out of the 5-6-7 spots as the Habs have 7 blueliners on one-way deals. Although its obvious that Montreal has a couple of injury prone defencemen (Andrei Markov, Josh Gorges), GM Pierre Gauthier insists the signing necessitated by health concerns but by Campoli's versatility to help out all over the lineup."Any time there's an experienced player that can help your club you look at it," said Gauthier. "In this case, Mr. Campoli is an experienced player and he can play various roles on your defence, so we feel he's a good addition. All we're doing is adding a solid player to the group. As we know from past years, to carry seven or eight defencemen is the right thing to do."
Although he is being paid a great sum of money, don't expect a whole lot from Campoli. Being a player that isn't known for strong defensive play, he will most likely end up being a handcuff to Markov/PK Subban on the power play and paired with a veteran defensive defenceman on the 3rd unit if not a healthy scratch for certain matchups.
-Dustin Lundberg
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