While the Pittsburgh Penguins season ended what feels like ages ago, the NHL season as a whole has officially come to an end with the Colorado Avalanche winning the Stanley Cup.
One of the bigger feel-good stories on the Avalanche comes from former Penguins defenseman Jack Johnson.
After 1,024 career regular season games, Johnson will have his name etched into history as a Stanley Cup Champion.
Johnson spent a pair of seasons with the Penguins from 2018 to 2020 and played in 149 games with Pittsburgh before being bought out of his contract.
The Penguins will be paying that buyout until the year 2026, but Johnson might call it a career and go out on top.
After much of the offseason before the 2021 offseason, Johnson did not have a contract with an NHL team.
In early September he signed a professional tryout offer with the Avalanche who eventually gave him a one-year deal for the 2021-22 season.
Johnson rode that deal for 74 regular season games and nine points before playing in 13 games in the postseason.
“Jack wasn’t even going to play this year,” AJ Hawk said on the Pat McAfee Show. “It was up and down a few times during the season… then gets to play in every game during the finals.”
Hawk is a former Super Bowl winning linebacker with the Green Bay Packers and Johnson’s brother-in-law.
“I’m happy for him because I know him very well and I know what he’s been through.” Hawk said.
There have been rumors that this season could be Johnson’s last as a professional hockey player, and what better way to cap off a career?
Johnson was a third overall pick in the 2005 NHL Draft, accumulated over 1,000 games in the NHL, won an Olympic silver medal in 2010, and is now a Stanley Cup Champion.
If this really is it for Johnson, congratulations on a long career and a well deserved sendoff as champion.
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