According to several reports including Peter Baugh and Scott Powers at The Athletic, the Chicago Blackhawks are signing Stanley Cup champion Jack Johnson to a one-year, $950K contract for the upcoming season.
This follows the Blackhawks’ offseason plan so far of accumulating talent that could be worthwhile trade chips at the deadline, while also not filling the NHL roster with enough to push them out of the bottom of the standings.
While Johnson did play a role in the recent Colorado Avalanche championship run, it was a limited one as a support piece for one of the best defensive corps in the NHL. That won’t be the case in Chicago, where the team is quite clearly looking to finish with a high lottery chance while accumulating more future assets.
Notably, an addition like Johnson also points to another strategy for the Blackhawks new front office. It appears, at least, as if the team is not going to carry as many young players as most rebuilding teams do. Instead, they have loaded up their minor league depth with talented veterans and could be trying to give their top prospects a chance to “experience winning” with a top AHL club instead of thrusting them into the NHL spotlight on a losing roster.
With deals for players like Johnson, Colin Blackwell, Max Domi, Andreas Athanasiou and Alex Stalock, the team has acquired quite a few veteran names that will fill out the roster but not move the needle very much.
A good example of this may present itself with Alex Vlasic, who played 15 games at the end of last season with the team after signing out of Boston University. The Blackhawks now have six defensemen on one-way contracts (with Johnson being the cheapest), and a player in Nicolas Beaudin who is no longer waiver-exempt. Vlasic then might be on his way to the minor leagues for a good portion of the season, if not all of it, as he starts his true rookie campaign.
It is a good opportunity for Johnson to continue his career at age 35, especially after finally winning it all this year. The third overall pick from 2005 has 1,024 regular season games to his name but just 30 playoff appearances before his stint in Colorado.
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