The New York Rangers will see if they can squeeze some value out of Jack Johnson this season, as Darren Dreger of TSN reports they will sign the veteran defenseman to a one-year contract. Larry Brooks of the New York Post reports the deal will be worth $1.15MM.
Rangers fans might not like it after watching Johnson flame out in Pittsburgh and require a buyout, but the fact was they needed some depth options on the back end. Since moving Marc Staal there wasn’t a lot on the left side, with only Brendan Smith signed to a one-way deal. Ryan Lindgren should also play on that side, but there are still minutes to go around alongside the Rangers excellent right side.
If he’s playing 20 minutes a night, Johnson is a disaster. But at just over $1MM and on a one-year deal, there is almost no risk for the still-rebuilding Rangers.
For Johnson, this is just another chance to show he can still hack it in the NHL. Now 33, he’ll already be earning almost a million dollars from the Penguins in each of the next six seasons, meaning this deal only supplements his buyout money. Getting a chance to play with the up-and-coming contender will be a treat, even if things haven’t gone well in his last two Eastern Conference stops.
Speaking of depth defenders, John Matisz of theScore also reports that Anthony Bitetto has also signed with the Rangers. His will be a two-year, two-way contract that will pay $725K at the NHL level in 2020-21 and $750K in 2021-22.
Haha a guy worse than Marc Staal
Much cheaper than Marc Staal too though for this year
NYR automatically lose the offseason
Yoikes, Jeff Gorton! “What-you-thinking???”
Yeah we lost the off-season after getting Lafreniere ….your pretty smart huh
The irony of you insulting someone’s intelligence when you can’t even get “your” and “you’re” straight isn’t lost on me.
You think you’re smart for correcting his grammar but is it really smart to abide by strangers laws and regulations, specially with made up stuff. I say neh, the greater sign of intelligence is using your brain yourself and not constantly allowing strangers to have so much power and control over it
Jack Johnson was NOWHERE near as bad as some of our dimwit fans (looking at you DK comment section) thought he was…
BUT
…they thought he invented Covid 19 and ate babies. Nowhere near as bad as they say, but that leaves plenty of room to where he was still bad enough that they had to buy him out.
He actually had good stretches here (he played on the top pair during two different 4-6 week stretches of .750 hockey) but (credit to Joe Starkey for making this point) in the playoffs, when opposing coaches could game plan for him, he’s too weak of a link to win.
This is simply a depth/if needed move. It’s not like he’s going to be putting big minutes on ice.
1.5 million dollars worth of crap
Ryan Strome and whatever his cap hit Is with Georgiev for Ryan Nugent Hopkins. Edmonton needs a goalie more then anything and Rangers want to upgrade second line center. RNH has one season before he hits open market.