The Ryan Johansen Saga

If you looked back at the 2017 NHL season, one of the names that may jump off the statistics page for you might have been Ryan Johansen. He was a solid player with the Columbus Blue Jackets who had been traded to the Nashville Predators for defenceman Seth Jones, and Johansen went to work in Music City with three-straight seasons of 50-or-more points. You might be thinking that the 50-point plateau isn't that great, but 2017 saw Johansen tie for the lead in scoring with 61 points on a very defence-first Predators team. Since 2019, however, Johansen has only scored 30-or-more points twice, and he's only hit 40-or-more points once. With the Philadelphia Flyers waiving Johansen in order to terminate his contract yesterday, the 32 year-old Johansen's career might effectively be over.

As a centerman, Johansen was never regarded as a bonafide goal-scorer. Just three times in his career since 2013 has he scored more than 20 goals in a season, so teams had to know they were getting more of a playmaking centerman when trading for or signing Johansen. One of the key skills that playmaking centermen need to have is skating, and Johansen may not be able to do that very well following a major hip injury that has reportedly called into question as to whether he'll ever play hockey again.

As a result, the Philadelphia Flyers went ahead and placed Johansen on unconditional waivers yesterday in order to terminate his contract due to a "material breach", but it seems that Johansen and his agent, Kurt Overhardt, will grieve this move through the NHLPA due to Johansen still being injured and requiring surgery. Overhardt released the following statement via Twitter on Tuesday stating their intentions to challenge Philadelphia's waiver termination move.

You might be wondering how the Flyers can simply discard an injured player, but it seems that they never really wanted to keep Johansen after trading Sean Walker to Colorado for him. What makes this strange, though, is that Johansen played in 63 games for Colorado prior to the trade, scoring 13 goals and adding ten assists, but apparently was injured enough to not suit up for any games for Philadelphia or its AHL affilate in Lehigh Valley after the Flyers acquired him. For the record, Johansen was placed on waivers on March 6 for the purpose of being assigned to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the AHL, cleared waivers on March 7, but reappeared on the Flyers' roster the next day. So what happened?

In an interview with Philly Hockey, Flyers GM Daniel Briere said, "He claimed to be injured when we traded for him, so we had him see the doctors. They found an injury, so now he's going to be rehabbing. You can't send down a player who’s injured, so he's going to be doing rehab until... we don’t know when. That's about all I can say at this time, or all that I have. So he's back on our roster doing rehab and trying to get better."

If that raises eyebrows, this next part won't help because Johansen played 10:58 against the Chicago Blackhawks on March 4 with no apparent discomfort, and he took the morning skate on March 6 just hours before he was traded later in the day. For a guy who requires "requires extensive surgery" as his agent suggested, one would expect him to not potentially aggravate the injury by playing and skating.

Is it just me or does it sound like Ryan Johansen never had any intention of suiting up for the Flyers after being traded?

With Johansen having $4 million owed to him by Philadelphia for one final season on his current contract (Nashville retained 50% in the trade to Colorado), he could be put on LTIR by the Flyers if they wanted the cap space, but this seems to run deeper than just worrying about salary cap money. Injured players cannot be bought out, so that option wouldn't be available for the Flyers if they were planning that scenario this summer. They already tried and couldn't send him to the AHL, so it would seem that the best way to open an NHL contract spot and not pay Johansen would be to terminate his contract as it seems doubtful that he'll ever play for the Flyers.

I'm no doctor and I have zero access to Ryan Johansen's medical records so I'm not the person to ask about his future, but Daniel Briere was very direct in April when asked if Ryan Johansen would play hockey for the Flyers.

"All I can tell you is I don't expect him to be back. I don't know, exactly, the situation. We're dealing on the medical side with him," Briere said via Jon Bailey of Philly Hockey Now. "The thing for him is getting him back to be able to play at this time. He doesn't think he can play hockey. I wish I had a better answer for you. We need to get him better to figure out if there’s even a remote chance of him dressing for the organization."

It should be noted that surgery has finally been scheduled for Johansen's injury, and one has to wonder why that too so long to happen. If Johansen was working to get back into the Flyers' lineup, scheduling surgery for September seems very peculiar when the injury was discovered in early March. Whatever happened in the last six months doesn't seem to align with whatever Johansen's contract states, and that's the "material breach" that the Flyers are citing in terminating his contract. Again, that contract termination is being challenged, but there's a lot of gray area in this situation where one could make the case that the Flyers have the upper hand.

The issue that I have is that Ryan Johansen could be a very good fit with the players that the Flyers have, and I think he could find his way back to a 50-point season if he were to play. Assuming he isn't injured, he could be a distributor and playmaker for players like Matvei Michkov, Joel Farabee, and Owen Tippett depending on where he fits into the lineup, but he'd likely be a third-line centerman who is an immediate offensive upgrade on Scott Laughton and Ryan Poehling. It seems, however, that option is no longer available.

We'll keep an eye on this situation with Johansen and the Flyers because it's likely that one side is going to be disappointed with the outcome from whoever decides on this grievance. We won't hear the details of the "material breach" that the Flyers found, but Johansen is already offtheir depth charts so it would seem that if the Flyers lose this hearing they'd be buying Johansen's final year out. If Johansen loses the grievance, he's effectively a free agent immediately with no additional pay, allowing him to sign with any of the other 31 teams.

I struggle to enjoy NHL hockey at the best of times, but it seems this league all business all the time. Fun is irrelevant.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!