Pittsburgh Penguins: 3 moves they must make after another early exit
1. Revamp The Third Pairing
I hate pointing fingers at individuals when teams lose, but sometimes, it’s necessary. The Pittsburgh Penguins lost to the Canadiens and it was largely due to their third pairing of Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz.
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I’m sure you don’t want to see a bunch of stats, so I’ll simplify things for you. The Penguins scored eight goals in four games against the Canadiens. As a pairing, Johnson and Schultz were on the ice for one of those goals. The Penguins allowed 10 goals. In 43:28 of ice time together, Johnson and Schultz were on the ice for four of them.
What’s worse is the duo counted for $8.75 million against the salary cap. That’s way too much for any third pairing, let alone one as ineffective as Johnson and Schultz. Schultz is an unrestricted free agent, so the Penguins should simply just let him sign elsewhere. He can easily be replaced by someone like Juuso Riikola, Chad Ruhwedel, or Pierre-Olivier Joseph.
Johnson’s going to be a bit more tricky. He’s still under contract for three more years. Two years into his five-year deal, Johnson’s become a significant liability. He drags down just about everyone who he plays with. Johnson is slow and is often caught out of position. The lone redeeming quality of his contract is his $3.25 million cap hit.
Pittsburgh will probably have to add draft picks and/or prospects to sweeten any deal involving Jack Johnson. Getting rid of him would be totally worth it. Replacing him would be pretty easy. There are plenty of defensemen out there worth taking a flyer on and almost all of them are far less expensive than Johnson.