Few Players Are Playing For More This Year Than Kent Johnson
Few NHL players have more financial incentive to perform this year than Columbus Blue Jackets forward Kent Johnson. Johnson is in the final season of a three-year bridge contract with a $1.8MM AAV and a $2MM qualifying offer next summer (as per PuckPedia). Johnson will be an RFA on July 1st, 2027, and will be arbitration-eligible at 24. Some might say that there are fringe NHLers playing for their NHL careers, and while that is true, Johnson’s financial incentive is in another stratosphere, as he is likely playing hockey this year with more money on the line than any other NHLer.
Johnson’s play last season did him no favors for his future earnings: he posted just seven goals and 15 assists in 76 games, a major step back in his career. He entered last year poised for a breakout, but he couldn’t become a consistent offensive threat, and his stock fell sharply. The year prior, Johnson was phenomenal, with 24 goals and 32 assists in 68 games, posting career highs that would have primed him for a big contract until last season.
The fifth overall pick in 2021 has watched everyone drafted ahead of him get their big paydays and has had to wait for his due because of his year-to-year inconsistency. Even players drafted shortly after Johnson (Brandt Clarke and Wyatt Johnston) have been paid handsomely. Johnson is now at a point where he is no longer a prospect or a player whose potential can be evaluated. He has built enough of a resume to show who he is, but he still has time to change the narrative this season. If you were evaluating Johnson today, you might call him a wildly talented, albeit inconsistent, offensive player. Johnson has the opportunity this year to squash the inconsistency narrative, but if he struggles again, he could reinforce it and cost himself tens of millions of dollars.
That is what makes Johnson’s season the ultimate make-or-break campaign. Given his age and the Columbus Blue Jackets’ penchant for trading young, talented forwards (Egor Chinakhov and the Kirill Marchenko), Johnson is in a precarious position. The Blue Jackets don’t seem to like uncertainty, and unfortunately for Johnson, that’s what he’s shown so far. Going from 57 points to 22 points in one year shows a wide gap between a ceiling and a floor, and it’s tough to see the Blue Jackets committing huge dollars unless Johnson can show Columbus something they’ve never seen before.
That opportunity is massive for Johnson, and he doesn’t even need to be an 80- or 90-point player to sway opinions. If he can reach 57 points again, he will have a very different negotiation than he would otherwise, meaning a potentially lucrative long-term deal rather than another bridge contract. Alternatively, another 20–30-point season would lock in another bridge deal for Johnson, but for significantly less money (and a shorter term) than he would otherwise receive.
Another interesting wrinkle is that the Blue Jackets have made significant changes to their forward group over the past couple of years, moving on from Chinakhov and Marchenko while bringing in Matthew Knies and Conor Garland. The team has also anointed Adam Fantilli as a cornerstone of the franchise, giving him a six-year, $82.5MM extension just a few weeks ago, in stark contrast to Johnson’s time with the team. That said, Johnson hasn’t earned that kind of deal, but it is an interesting footnote. Fantilli earned Columbus’ confidence right out of the gate with solid play that appears to be on an upward trajectory, while Johnson has struggled with inconsistency and has had to settle for a relatively low-cost bridge deal.
The difference between Fantilli and Johnson’s production, and ultimately their compensation, is obvious to everyone, especially Johnson, who has no doubt taken note of it and likely has it stored away in his mind as a motivator. Now that Marchenko is gone, a few things stand out. Columbus isn’t afraid to move on from young forwards, but they will pay them if their play warrants the salary (see Fantilli’s contract). Marchenko’s exit and Knies’ arrival also show Columbus will give young players chances, and Johnson will likely get one this season. But with more opportunity, Johnson will need to prove he deserves top-player compensation; otherwise, Columbus could deal him away the way it did with Chinakhov at the end of last year.
Columbus signed Johnson to his current bridge deal because he had a lot of upside, but now it’s time to prove that upside is real. At this point, there is no guarantee he can show it yet, and until he does, it remains projection and hope. The Blue Jackets are paying Fantilli for what they believe he will become. If Johnson wants the same treatment, he’ll need to show a whole lot more than he has. Otherwise, he is looking at another short-term bridge deal with a lower AAV.
