Nashville Predators Season Grades: Ryan Johansen

As with the majority of the Nashville Predators roster, it’s been a season full of ups and down for Ryan Johansen. But it wasn’t a complete failure, either.

Johansen is a player that sometimes gets unjust criticism because he’s not the flashy player that racks up a ton of goals or skates circles around the opposition with blazing speed.

But make no mistake about it, Johansen is a critical piece to the success of the Nashville Predators both in the past season, and the seasons ahead.

The biggest frustration I occasionally have with Johansen is he can go through stretches where he’s virtually non-existent. And considering the role he’s in is a top-six center, we need more consistency from him.

I routinely called out some of the top players on the team, like Johansen, whenever they were no-shows in critical games. He wasn’t always a disaster, but there were plenty of occasions when his impact was minimal as a top-six center.

Dip in production

Johansen’s assist numbers were way down in 2019-20.  Just the season before he put up 50 assists, which is just four short of tying Paul Kariya‘s franchise record.

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This season, on the other hand, Johansen has managed just 22 assists despite missing just one game and playing with a lot of talented offensive players.

But there’s also been a lot of turbulence on the team that was out of Johansen’s control. Peter Laviolette seemingly lost control of the team, and the lineup had no chemistry after starting off strong initially.

Then the coaching change came in early January, and there were some growing pain under John Hynes that had to be worked out. That’s certainly a factor you can cite for why Johansen’s assist numbers are way down.

Johansen was on his way to possibly setting a new season high in goals since he joined the Predators. He’s posted exactly 14 goals in four of the five seasons since coming to the Predators.

There was also a moderate reduction in average ice time for Johansen as he had 17:03 on average. That’s the lowest since his second NHL season, so that is something you have to take not of as well.

Johansen still remained solid in the faceoff circle, fairly respectable with his possession metrics and impacted the game in other important areas. It wasn’t his best season in Nashville by any means, but wasn’t a complete disaster, either.

With more continuity with the lineup presumably next season, I think Johansen will have a more productive season.  Most definitely in terms of making his linemates more productive, which is something he’s always had a knack for in his NHL career.

I like Johansen the best being paired up with speedy players that work hard on the forecheck and create open space on the ice. He’ll have a bounce-back type of season going into next year.

As for this current season, you can call it a slight dip from a player that needs to be producing more like a top-six center.