Penguins Must Invest Wisely; When Does Johnson Cash Out?

Yahoo

13-05-2025

All indications are that Kyle Dubas, the Pittsburgh Penguins' president of hockey operations and general manager, s has ownership's permission to spend to the salary-cap ceiling during the coming season, when it will spike to $95.5 million.
That doesn't mean he will – or even, should — do so.
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Oh, it's fine if Dubas wants to be aggressive in pursuing trades and/or free agents – especially ones who are young enough to get around the locker room without relying on a walker – but transforming the Penguins into serious Cup contenders will require more than ample cap space.
A reasonable chunk of time, for starters, since upgrades of the number and magnitude the Penguins will require to compete for anything more lofty than a low seed in the playoffs can't be rushed. Quick fixes rarely provide long-term solutions.
Still, that cap space can be put to productive use, even if it isn't all invested in long-established veterans who can have an immediate impact.
Dubas could, for example, collect assets – be it a prospect, draft choice or NHL player – for taking on the contract of an underachieving player whose current club is strapped for cap space. Or for facilitating a trade between two other clubs by agreeing to accept a share of a player's cap hit if that's necessary for the exchange to go through.
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If Dubas decides to go after free agents, he presumably will focus on restricted ones, since they tend to be younger than their unrestricted peers and conceivably could fill roles on a relatively extended basis.
There's a lot more to it than simply convincing an RFA to accept a contract proposal, though.
Unless his team is in serious salary-cap distress – as was the case with Edmonton last summer, when it declined to match the offer sheets St. Louis extended to defenseman Philip Broberg and forward Dylan Holloway – clubs pursuing him might simply be doing the current team's negotiating for it, since it can match any proposal to which the player in question agrees.
Overpaying is one potential way to clear that hurdle, but even for a club with plenty of cap space now, that could cause problems in the future.
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There also is the matter of compensation, which is determined by annual cap hit of the deal the RFA signs with his new team. Broberg ($4,580, 917) cost the Blues a second-round draft choice, while the Oilers received a third-rounder for Holloway ($2,290,457).
Given that the Penguins have at least one choice in almost every round of the next three drafts – the exceptions are the fourth and fifth rounds in 2026 – compensation shouldn't be a major problem, although the picks used as compensation cannot be ones acquired in a trade.
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Jack Johnson hasn't played for the Penguins since the 2019-20 season. In another a year, he'll finally be off their payroll.
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The Penguins, who bought out Johnson's five-year contract after two seasons, owe him $915,557 in 2025-26. That's more than his salary on three of the five contracts he's signed (with the New York Rangers, Chicago, Colorado and Columbus) since being cut loose.
That the Penguins expected more from Johnson is an understatement, and while he wasn't quite the unmitigated liability that a considerable segment of the fan base made him out to be, the $16,250,000 contract he got in 2018 isn't going to go down as one of then-GM Jim Rutherford's most inspired moves.
While Johnson's offensive numbers during his time with the Penguins were understandably modest – four goals and 20 assists in 149 games – because his game was predicated on his defensive work, it's hard to overlook how much they paid for each of his 24 points.
With two seasons of full salary and three more worth of buyouts (spread over six years), his take from his time with the Penguins comes to $9,250,001, which works out to $385,416.71 per point.
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If Sidney Crosby – who admittedly is not a defense-oriented defenseman – were paid at that rate in 2024-25, when he had 91 points, he would have earned $35,072,920.50.
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