Article: The Wild Should Explore A Kent Johnson Trade

[Luke Sims]

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[Dean]

That would be nice. Maybe Fred would waive his no move to be traded 

[FredJohnson]

"But Freddy Gaudreau could take that spot on the fourth line "

"Like hell!!" - Deano

[Mateo3xm]

It’s fun to dream about this but I don’t think there’s a snowballs chance in ell.
especially not for that offer.

 

 

With the rise of Greig for Ottawa, I would imagine Pinto would be a much more likely candidate for us to acquire.

6’3 Center who scored 20 goals his rookie year.

 

 

[mnfaninnc]

Kent Johnson would offer size? 

Quote

Johnson’s size, speed, and skill would greatly boost the Wild offense. 

Look at his card, he's listed at 165 lbs. That's less than Spurgeon's weight. Unless you can tell me that Johnson has somehow added 30 lbs., I would suggest that the reason he was sent down was he's too light to play the type of game that Vincent wants. And we play a similar type of style.

His speed and skill would be useful to pair with Boldy, but to list his size is pretty off. Last season Johnson scored 40 pts., but was a -19. I didn't have time to look up how that compared with the rest of the team, but to put that into perspective, that is Addison territory and just like I've pounded Addison on his lack of size, I would be doing the same, likely, with Johnson. 

Think about this for a minute, on NHL.com, Johnson is listed as 178. He's weighing less than Rossi right now. We saw how bad Rossi was last season until he gained the strength and weight this past offseason. I think we'd set ourselves up for similar frustration.

Now, is Johnson willing to put the time and effort into the weight room? I would want to know that before pulling the trigger on a trade. But, I did like the compensation with the 2nd round pick. This assumes that Firstov is willing to come back to the NHL.

Edited November 25, 2023 by mnfaninnc

[Sjaz2367]

I’d love to see something like that happen. Our chips are all in the middle since we resigned all the old guys.

[mnfaninnc]

As I watch the Detroit game, David Perron scored 2 very nice PP goals. Why don't the Wild get goals like that??? That's a great question, and one that needs to be explored.

This falls straight on the desk of GMBG. He is not a great believer in handedness. Our forwards are way over balanced towards left handed shots. So, to answer the question above, the reason we don't have goals like that is because we don't have a forward who can legitimately play in Ovechkin's office. Even with Ek, the pass pretty much needs to come from the right side of the rink for him to get the best tip/rebound opportunity. It is fairly easy for a PK to defend a left handed shot heavy PP. 

Now, based upon this article, Kent Johnson is another left handed forward, and a very light one at that. I'd suggest that if we make some additions to the forward group, they need to be right handed shots with a very good shot, especially one-timer. Johnson does not meet that criteria. 

Currently, the best chance we have at this is Spurgeon, a defender who has shown in the past he can sneak down to that area. However, how many times have we seen him do this this year? 0! He rarely crosses over to the left side of the rink. He's also playing back to insure there is some defense.

Hartman is our right handed guy. His shot is really below average as he needs to be within 10' to have a decent chance and 1/2 the time he'll flub the puck. You know who would be nice there? Patrick Laine. Yet, we couldn't afford that contract. Laine was also bench recently. 

Now, had GMBG waited and not extended Zuccarello, Foligno and Hartman, they could have been part of the deal and we could have afforded him with retained cap. Of course, they would likely have been part of the deal.

This is a very small detail in the game, but one that I have pointed out for several seasons now. This is what you get when you don't balance things out. And at this level, being able to cheat a small way to the right side of the rink cuts down a lot of angles. I would suggest that 2 right handed heavy shot players are needed on this roster. 

We don't really have those guys in the system either as we haven't paid attention in drafting to getting those righties either. This flaw falls directly on GMBG. He needs to fix it.

[Imyourhuckleberry]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:30 AM, mnfaninnc said:

Look at his card, he's listed at 165 lbs.

At his card? Are we talking about his rookie card or draft card?

He's listed at 175 pounds in the 3 places I looked, including NHL.com.

Not suggesting he's big, but 10 pounds added over the last couple of years could make a difference. Likely he'll be at 180+ in the near future.

[mnfaninnc]

3 hours ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Not suggesting he's big, but 10 pounds added over the last couple of years could make a difference. Likely he'll be at 180+ in the near future.

This is precisely my point, that's not size by any stretch of the imagination. I was referring to the card in the article and later corrected with his NHL listed weight at 178. At 6'1", to be considered having size, he'll need to be somewhere in the 200-205 range.

At 180, we're looking at another Addison story.