Nashville Predators: Signing Ryan Johansen Is Mandatory

The Nashville Predators signed Arvidsson, Watson and other players within the last week. Things are looking good, but there’s at least one piece to go.

The 2017-18 season marks the twentieth anniversary of the Nashville Predators’ existence. For most of those years, one key component has been missing. It’s something that makes pretenders into contenders, good teams into great teams, and brief periods of success into dynasties.

An elite first-line center.

That may read as a knock against some of the men that have served that role for Nashville in the past, and I would never mean to denigrate the likes of Mike Fisher & David Legwand. The fact of the matter is that as good as Fisher & Legwand were during their careers, they were never considered among the best of their position in the NHL. Neither man appeared in a single All-Star Game during their time in Nashville, and while that event isn’t exactly the pinnacle of hockey, the best players do appear there.

Moments notice

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I was at the 2015 All-Star Game in Columbus. As a Predators fan that was still learning about other teams & their players, most of the players on the ice were guys I wouldn’t have been able to spot in a police lineup. There was so much scoring it was tough to keep track of who was doing what, but at the end of the evening Ryan Johansen of the Columbus Blue Jackets stood above the rest as the fan-voted MVP.  At least I knew who he was at the end of the night.

I noticed during the early part of the 2015-16 season that Johansen was having a rough time with the Blue Jackets & their new head coach John Tortorella. The knock on Ryan at the time was that he had gotten lazy & soft and that was why he had fallen out of favor in Columbus. This was somewhat disconcerting as he was on my fantasy team. I was hoping that either things would work out or that Johansen would find himself in a new environment that he could thrive in.

So of course he was traded to Nashville in exchange for Seth Jones.

I was a big Seth Jones guy. I loved the pick in the 2013 Draft and expected him to be a cornerstone of the Predators for years to come. My solace in him getting traded was that at least I knew the guy he was getting traded for. Johansen at the peak of his powers would be a great aid to what was at the time a stagnant Predators offense.

Nashville’s true first-line center had arrived.

The Predators offense has run much smoother ever since Johansen’s arrival. The reports of him being lazy and soft are no more. Skaters like Ryan Kesler that tried to take advantage of that perceived softness found themselves on the short end of the stick during the 2016-17 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The combination of Johansen, Filip Forsberg & Viktor Arvidsson has already become one of Nashville’s most dangerous scoring lines in their twenty years of existence.

I think if Ryan Johansen was healthy during the Stanley Cup Final, the Nashville Predators would be defending the Cup this coming season. As good as guys like Fisher, Colton Sissons & Calle Jarnkork were in relief, the offense just wasn’t the same without Johansen centering the top line. Forsberg & Arvidsson were split onto different lines with new partners and neither skater was quite as effective as they were the rest of the postseason. With the JOFA Line intact, things would have been much more difficult for the Pittsburgh Penguin defenders.

These things happen. Johansen will not get hurt every postseason, so more chances will arise. I only opt to shed a tear over some spilled milk to state the importance of Johansen to the Nashville Predators organization.

There’s a chance they can win a Cup without him, but it’s going to be easier with him.

While most of the negative preconceptions about Johansen have gone away during his time in Nashville, there’s still one negative from his days in Columbus. Negotiations between Johansen’s agent Kurt Overhardt & the Blue Jackets were tremendously difficult and involved some pretty serious name-calling. Hindsight being 20/20, it’s easy to say that this was the beginning of the troubles between Johansen & Blue Jackets management that led to his departure from Columbus.

That all sounds like a possible issue until you take into consideration that Overhardt & his agency also represent Viktor Arvidsson. That deal seemed to go pretty well for everybody involved. Whatever problems cropped up between Columbus management & KO Sports, Inc haven’t been a factor in any dealings with Overhardt’s clients & the Predators.

Barring some unforeseen circumstance, Predators fans can expect some type of announcement on a Johansen contract very soon. With $13.4 million left in cap space, Nashville has space for a healthy raise for Johansen. And maybe a returning Mike Fisher.

Next: Top 5 plays from the 2017 playoffs

With all that said, I’m going to wait until Johansen officially signs before throwing the parade. I’ve seen too many goofy things happen in sports off-seasons.