Penguins plan to sign Jack Johnson to 5-year contract: reports
The Penguins plan to sign veteran defenseman Jack Johnson to a five-year contract when free agency opens Sunday, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette and 105.9 The X radio station in Pittsburgh. The deal will reportedly have an annual cap hit in the $3-3.5 million range.
“Things can obviously change between now and then, but there appears to be plenty of confidence that Johnson will come here for myriad reasons — and finances aren’t expected to get in the way,” the Post-Gazzette writes.
Johnson, 31, recorded three goals and eight assists in 77 games with the Blue Jackets last season. He set a career-low for average time on ice (19:33) and posted his lowest point total since 2008-09, when he was a 22-year-old who played in just 41 games.
None of that will apparently stop the Penguins from giving him a significant commitment in the form of a five-year deal. The team recently traded forward Conor Sheary and defenseman Matt Hunwick to the Sabres to clear cap space. Assuming the contract doesn’t fall through, a portion of that will go to Johnson, who could be the No. 4 or No. 5 defenseman in Pittsburgh.
The Penguins currently have blue liners Kris Letang, Justin Schultz, Olli Maatta and Brian Dumoulin set to make over $4 million next season.
That salary cap space that the Penguins saved in the trade that sent Conor Sheary and Matt Hunwick to the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday afternoon? General manager Jim Rutherford already has plans for it.
According to a report by Tribune-Review columnist Mark Madden of 105.9-FM, the Penguins have reached an agreement on a five-year contract with free agent defenseman Jack Johnson of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Teams are allowed to discuss contracts in general terms during the week leading up to the start of the free-agent signing period Sunday at noon. Computer-model projections have pegged Johnson's salary on a five-year deal between $3 and $4 million annually.
Johnson is coming off a poor season in Columbus. He had three goals, 11 points and a minus-6 rating in 78 regular-season games, then was a healthy scratch in the playoffs. He was much more effective the year before, recording five goals, 23 points and a plus-23 rating in 82 games.
“I've always thought he fit in there. He was a real steady guy,” an NHL scout said. “He was on the second pair, where he should be. I have to assume (being scratched in the playoffs) would have been a coach thing because he played pretty well and was pretty steady.
“I think early on in his career, he tried to do too much. There, I thought he was pretty steady. If you get this guy and you're able to put him where he belongs, he's a pretty effective player.”
Signing Johnson would give Rutherford the balance on the defense that he has craved since the Penguins were eliminated by the Washington Capitals in the second round of the playoffs. Rutherford said this week that he hoped to construct a defense corps in which Kris Letang's minutes could be limited to around 24 per game.
The 6-foot-1, 227-pound Johnson has always been known as a strong skater with high-end offensive skill and physicality. He's never been a puck-possession standout, failing to top 50 percent in shot-attempt percentage in any of his 11 seasons in the NHL.
Johnson is a close friend of Penguins captain Sidney Crosby from their time at Shattuck St. Mary's prep school in Minnesota. Rutherford drafted Johnson when he was GM in Carolina with the third pick of the 2005 draft.
Jonathan Bombulie is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at jbombulie@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BombulieTrib.
On Wednesday the Pittsburgh Penguins cleared a significant amount of salary cap space over the next two years by sending forward Conor Sheary and defenseman Matt Hunwick to the Buffalo Sabres for a draft pick.
That trade, combined with the bump to the league-wide cap ceiling for 2018, has given the Penguins more than $10 million in salary cap space to work with this summer. Only needing to re-sign Jamie Oleksiak and Riley Sheahan, that newfound cap space gives them plenty of options in free agency or the trade market and could make them contenders for a number of impact players. It also helped them correct what was a pretty significant mistake in last summer’s free agent signing period when gave Hunwick a three-year contract that paid him more than $2 million per season. It became apparent very early in the season that Hunwick and the Penguins were not a great match as the veteran struggled throughout much of the season and eventually found himself as a healthy scratch.
That signing not working out — and the ensuing trade — is just one of the reasons Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford is looking to upgrade the team’s blue line this summer.
[Related: Penguins ship Hunwick, Sheary to Buffalo in cap-clearing trade]
One player the team seems to be targeting in free agency: Former Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Jack Johnson.
Over the past couple of weeks there has been plenty of smoke surrounding the Penguins and Johnson with both Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reporting that the two sides could be a possible match. On Wednesday there seemed to be a little more fuel thrown on that fire when reports began to surface out of Pittsburgh that Johnson could be joining the Penguins on Sunday when the free agent signing period officially begins.
According to Mackey, the Penguins intend to sign Johnson to a five-year (five-year!) contract on Sunday for a dollar amount that could be in the $3-3.5 million range. Mark Madden of 105.9 the X, the Penguins’ flagship radio station, first reported the five-year term.
Assuming all of this plays out this would be a pretty bizarre series of events for the Penguins.
For one, even though the reported contract numbers would represent a sharp reduction in salary from Johnson’s previous contract, that is still a significant amount of money for a team that is perpetually pressed against the league’s salary cap ceiling. Especially for a player that is 31 years old (and will turn 32 during the season), coming off of a career-worst year offensively, and whose season ended with him being a healthy scratch on a fringe playoff team that was bounced in the first round.
None of that should sound encouraging.
Johnson entered the NHL more than a decade ago with much fanfare. He was the third player selected in the Sidney Crosby draft (behind Crosby and Bobby Ryan) and that pre-draft hype has followed him around for most of his career, at least in the sense that hockey people seem to love him no matter how much evidence there is to suggest that he isn’t as good as they thought he was going to be.
Objectively speaking the numbers are ugly.
Since entering the NHL in 2006-07 Johnson’s minus-109 mark is the worst among all NHL players.
Flawed as plus/minus is, when you are talking about more than a decades worth of data, and also taking into account that Johnson has played on some pretty good teams during his career, there should be cause for concern that he has finished as a plus-player just once in his career. He has been minus-5 or worse in every other season. Six times he has finished as a minus-12 or worse.
From a shots perspective things are just as bad.
Since the start of the 2006-07 season (Johnson’s debut year) there have been more than 356 defensemen that have played at least 100 games in the NHL. Johnson’s 48 percent Corsi rating is 275th out of that group.
Just looking at the past five years his 47.9 mark is 204th out of 259 defenders.
In other words: When Jack Johnson is on the ice his team is getting badly outshot and badly outscored. That is a terrible combination.
So why in the world are the Penguins interested in this?
They obviously need some additional help on the blue line and definitely need some additional depth. But is this the best way to get it? Is this the best allocation of resources?
In recent years the Penguins have had some success taking on reclamation projects on defense and getting more out of them than other teams have been able to with the additions of Trevor Daley, Justin Schultz, and most recently Jamie Oleksiak.
But none of those players required the type of immediate commitment they would be giving Johnson. All of them were originally acquired for minimal assets (Daley was acquired for Rob Scuderi, while Schultz and Oleksiak were acquired for mid-round draft picks). The other factor: Schultz and Oleksiak were both in their age 25 seasons when they were acquired and had at least shown flashes that they had more to offer in the right setting. Johnson, again, will turn 32 years old this season. What we have seen from him at this point in his career is a pretty good indication that this is what he is as a player. And if you’re looking for a potential player to “fix,” that is a huge commitment for a question mark.
There is nothing wrong with a team wanting to sign Jack Johnson in free agency. Yes, his entire career he has been woefully miscast as a top-pairing defenseman and has consistently shown he is probably not suited for that role.
But in the right setting, on the right contract, in the right role, there might be some value for a team to find. Based on every piece of evidence we have to look at throughout Johnson’s career, the right contract and the right role is not a five-year commitment for an apparent top-four role on a cap-strapped team.
Rutherford is a three-time Stanley Cup champion and has made some fantastic trades/transactions during his time in Pittsburgh. But he is not invincible. He is not immune to mistakes, as evidence by the fact that literally every addition he made last summer has already been jettisoned by the Penguins. If they actually go through with a five-year, $16 million contract for Johnson with the hopes of playing him in a top-four role it would not be a shock to see them trying to get out of that contract before it expires as well.
More NHL Free Agency:
• PHT Power Rankings: The top-20 NHL Free Agents
• Ilya Kovalchuk, Kings agree to terms on three-year deal
• John Carlson gets $64 million payday as Capitals lock up defenseman
Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.
Pittsburgh Hockey Now has confirmed Jack Johnson will sign a contract Sunday with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The terms of the deal cannot be discussed until Sunday, but a source connected to the Penguins front office confirmed it will be five years, and between $16.5 million and $17.5 million. The average annual cap hit will be $3 to $3.5 million.
This season, Johnson, 31, had 11 points (3g, 8a) in 77 games for the Columbus Blue Jackets. It was a down for Johnson, who scored 23 (5g, 18a) points in 2016-17. Johnson found himself on the outs with head coach John Tortorella, and his ice time dipped below 20 minutes per game for the first time in his 11 year career. For those who follow advanced analytics, Johnson’s Corsi rating was five percent below the team average.
Johnson signed a seven-year, $30.5 million dollar contract with the L.A. Kings in 2011, but was traded at midseason to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Johnson was dealt for Jeff Carter and a first-round pick.
Johnson is a long time friend of Sidney Crosby. The pair were juniors on the powerful 2003 St. Mary-Shattuck team which won the USA Hockey Tier I 17 & Under National Championship. Crosby then played for Rimouski of the QMJHL, while Johnson played for the US U-18 National team, then the University of Michigan.
Stick tap to Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Mark Madden who had the information first. Pittsburgh Hockey Now’s source is independent of their stories.
