New Jersey Devils: Get on the Andreas ‘Mango’ Johnsson Train ASAP

The New Jersey Devils are bringing a Mango back to the Garden State.

When the New Jersey Devils flipped 22-year-old restricted free agent forward Joey Anderson to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Andreas Johnsson, it felt like a rather peculiar move for a team in no way trying to win now.

Now granted, it’s not like the Devils didn’t know what they had in ‘one S’ Johnson, who was the team’s third-round pick in 2016 and appeared in 52 regular season games over the past two seasons, but as a general rule, team’s don’t trade ‘prospects’ for 26-year-old forward when player evaluation is the name of the game for a (probably) non-playoff season.

That is, unless said player is a marked upgrade and a potential top-six forward just looking for an expanded opportunity to shine.

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Measuring in at 5-foot-10, 181 pounds, Johnsson was a seventh-round pick of the Maple Leafs in 2013 and took the scenic route to the NHL – playing for Frölunda HC from 2010-16 before joining the Toronto Marlies in 2016 and eventually the Leafs in a full-time capacity in 2018. Though he only has 125 NHL games to his name despite being a professional hockey player for well over a decade, the 26-year-old Gavle, Sweden native really came into his own in 2018-19 – recording 20 goals, 43 points, and 60 hits in 73 games of action.

This performance landed Johnsson a four-year, $13.6 million contract extension, but he quickly became expendable after an underwhelming follow-up campaign in 2019-20.

So naturally, with the Leafs much closer to the cap ceiling than the Devils, it made sense to swap out a bottom-six forward with no guaranteed spot in any of the team’s lines for a developmental player better suited for a part-time role.

But hey, you know what they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Even if Johnsson won’t be making anyone forget about his former teammate, Auston Matthews, anytime soon, he’s more than capable of adding some extra firepower to Lindy Ruff‘s rotation.

With an active stick, an eye for the puck, and the versatility to play on either wing, Johnsson is a utility forward who can wear a lot of hats. He can play on power plays, and penalty kills, play on the right side behind Kyle Palmieri, or even challenge Nikita ‘Goose’ Gusev for a spot on the top line next to Nico Hischier.

Fun fact: With both Palmieri and Gusev set to become restricted and unrestricted free agents when the season comes to an end respectably, Johnsson may find himself in line for an even bigger role for the New Jersey Devils in 2021-22.

Oh yeah, and did I mention Johnsson has one of the cooler nicknames in the NHL? Yup, move over Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johson; the Devils now have Andreas ‘The Mango’ Johnsson. That’ll surely catch on, right? While even Johnsson’s former teammates in Toronto aren’t exactly sure why he’ll answer to being called a tropical stone fruit, the oblique origins of the moniker in a weird way make sit more compelling – as if it was, is, and forever will be.

For better or worse, the 2020-21 NHL season is all about the New Jersey Devils identifying which players they believe they can build around and which players aren’t fits long-term. If the team was able to determine Joey Anderson didn’t fall into the former camp and felt that Andreas Johnsson did, that’s really all that matters, even if he’s a half-decade older than their young core of Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, and MacKenzie Blackwood. With three more seasons left on a contract that only pays out at an AAV of $3.4 million, Mango could still very well become a long-term auxiliary piece to pair up with their young stars moving forward – which is great value for an ex-third round pick.