If there’s one player on the team with ice in his veins, whose temperature doesn’t really seem to change, it’s Johnson. He’s scored imaginative and clutch goals throughout his career – none bigger than his OT winner in the gold medal game of the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship for Canada – and doesn’t seem to get fazed by whatever’s going on in the game around him.
“I love those moments,” said Johnson, who notched his first two-goal, three-pont game in Toronto. “I definitely feel good in overtime or late in the game if we’re trying to tie it or whatever. I think it’s just the way I am. For as long as I can remember, when I was younger, I scored in shootouts or whatever. I just always loved it.”
Johnson was all smiles in the locker room after that winner, a big change from where he was early in the season. After one of the best rookie campaigns both in the NHL last year and in CBJ history when he posted a 16-24-40 line, Johnson had just a goal and two assists in the first eight games this year and just didn’t look like the same confident, impactful offensive figure.
The decision was made to send the 21-year-old University of MIchigan product to AHL Cleveland, and he found his mojo. Johnson had five goals and 15 points in 10 games with the Monsters, and since coming back to Columbus he has a 2-4-6 line in the last five games.
“I wouldn’t say there was one thing crazy missing in my game or anything, but yeah, it wasn’t going my way,” he said of his early-season performance. “It was only eight games, and it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad as maybe we thought, but it’s long gone now. (The time in Cleveland) definitely helped. I think it was great for me. I played a lot there. There’s a great group of guys there to be around and just focus on development and have the right mind-set there, so I think it was good.”
Head coach Pascal Vincent said he was happy to see Johnson take the move with the right attitude, as well as the success that has come from it.
“He was a man about it,” Vincent said. “He said, ‘Perfect, I'll go there,’ and he did it right in Cleveland, gained his confidence and now he's got that mind-set here. And because of that, he's making those plays, but he took it the right way.
"The American League is an amazing league for players like this – get your confidence come back and you're gonna be a better player. So I’m really happy with him.”
While Johnson’s scoring totals have gone up in recent games, so too has his play away from the puck, something he credits for his recent success. That was on full display Thursday in Toronto as he intercepted multiple passes in CBJ offensive zone, one of which he quickly dished to Patrik Laine for the Jackets’ first goal of the game.
“I feel like I can keep rolling here,” he said. “I think one thing I’m doing a lot this year better than last year, especially lately, I feel like my stick is a lot better. I’m getting a lot more takeaways and strips on the forecheck for myself, which is good. You don’t have to just rely on the ebbs and flows of the game to get the puck. Sometimes you have to take it back, and then I’m getting the puck more, and I think everyone knows when I have the puck what I can do. So it’s been good.”
Seeing that growth is exciting to Vincent, who played Johnson a season-high 17:33 last night and has called Johnson one of the big building blocks of the CBJ organization.
“What gets me excited is we know he can do it, but we reinforce those little components all the time,” Vincent said. “He's like a sponge, then executes them on the ice. He’s a real smart young man, and for him to be able to hear it, to see it on the video and to execute it on the ice, that's what we're looking for. That's hockey sense.
"He's done a lot of good things, and that (Toronto) game, he produced and that's what people see. I understand. We see it differently. The reason why he had those points was his compete, his defensive game was really good. And because of that, he was in a position to create offense.”
