Ryan Johansen was at the pinnacle of his NHL career while with the Nashville Predators for eight years, but it has been anything but a smooth ride for him since being traded in 2023.
The Predators parted ways with Johansen in June of last offseason while getting nothing in return other than Alex Galchenyuk, who didn't play at all in 2023-24 and doesn't have a current NHL contract.
On top of that, the Predators retained 50 percent, or $4 million, of Johansen's remaining deal that goes until 2025. The Philadelphia Flyers then acquired Johansen from the Colorado Avalanche this past March, but he never played one game for Philly.
Are you keeping up with all of this? This brings us to the current situation, which has been reported by multiple insiders including Elliotte Friedman that the Flyers are looking to terminate Johansen's contract due to a "material breach".
Johansen's career takes another unfortunate turn for the worse
In others words, Johansen had an injury that kept him the Flyers from placing him on waivers originally. Now both sides are in a sticky situation, with Johansen's agent arguing on his client's behalf that the veteran has suffered a serious hockey injury that needs surgery.
Ryan Johansen’s agent, Kurt Overhardt, releases a statement.
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) August 20, 2024
This one will be grieved…we will see where it goes — settlement or no. Both agent and Flyers digging in hard https://t.co/Nz8Zw8MqxW
Who knows how this will end up being resolved, but Johansen's might have a serious case for himself if the injury is hockey related and his contract is unfairly being terminated. And now the NHLPA is involved.
Just a really ugly situation for Johansen, who just turned 32 and in reality should still have a few years of good hockey left in him. He was only able to muster up 23 points in 63 games for the Avalanche this past season, but was also buried on a loaded depth chart. He didn't enjoy nearly the heavy minutes he saw when playing with Nashville in his prime.
Johansen is just two seasons removed from putting up 63 points for the Predators, including 26 goals which tied his career high. A lot of Predators players exploded offensively in 2021-22, and Johansen was certainly in the middle of that insane production that no one saw coming.
During the best years of the Predators organization, Johansen was a central figure. He was a fan favorite for a long time, was one-third of the infamous "JoFA" line with Filip Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson, and was adored by so many fans in Smashville.
Say what you will about Johansen never fully living up to top line center, but the guy overall was a huge asset to the Nashville Predators and is easily top-20 all-time and maybe you can even argue top-10 as one of the most important players in franchise history.
Johansen faces uncertain future with significant injury to deal with
The injury that Johansen is reportedly dealing with is a hip injury. A very delicate area that can make it very difficult to get back on the ice and ever be the same again. Let's hope that Johansen can get effective surgery and figure out a way to land on a new team, because it looks beyond repair that he ever plays a game for the Flyers.
I'm getting nasty similar vibes from what happened with Ryan Ellis after leaving the Predators. He could never recover from his injuries, either and his NHL career was cut way too short.
Assuming Johansen can fully recover from this injury that's put both sides in this predicament, he should be able to find another team soon after. If he ended up on waivers you would think another team could end up easily taking a flyer on him, no pun intended.
In terms of how this impacts the Predators today, the contract termination can free up the dead cap hit amount of $4 million. Of course we all know the salary cap squeeze the Predators are in thanks to going so heavy in free agency.
As much as you never want to see a player's health or ability to play hockey affected, this indirectly could end up really bailing out GM Barry Trotz in his salary cap debacle. He already got forced into a less than satisfactory trade of Cody Glass to free up cap space.
Right now the Predators have just north of $3 million in approximate cap space according to PuckPedia, with two RFAs still needing new deals in Philip Tomasino and Juuso Parssinen. Time is running out on figuring out how to keep at least one of these two players, if not both preferrably.
If the additional $4 million in cap space comes through based on the Johansen ruling and his contract is indeed terminated, then the Predators will be suddenly in a much more favorable position to re-sign Tomasino and Parssinen.