He’s earned his degree from the University of Minnesota and now it’s time for his pro career to get under way.
ROCHESTER — When the University of Minnesota lost to Quinnipiac University in the men’s hockey national championship game on April 8, eyes in Western New York turned toward defenseman Ryan Johnson wondering how soon it would be, if ever, he would put pen to paper to join the Buffalo Sabres.
But as the days went on, there wasn’t much word from Johnson or the Sabres about what, if anything, was going to happen. The Sabres season was winding down with a playoff spot in their sights and the Rochester Americans were gearing up for the postseason in the AHL. It seemed like the perfect time to bring in a first-round talent fresh off another strong college season.
The days counted down and the Sabres season came to an end. The AHL playoffs began with Rochester facing off against Syracuse and ultimately winning the series in five games. Then they swept the Toronto Marlies in three games.
The morning of Game 3 between Rochester and Hershey in the AHL semifinal, news came down at last: Johnson signed his entry-level deal with Buffalo. He was taken with the first-round pick acquired in the Ryan O’Reilly trade and he enters a situation with the Sabres organization that by all appearances is on the way up.
Even with the positivity surrounding the Sabres, the possibility of becoming a free agent is tempting, particularly when Johnson had a lot of people with a lot of opinions of what he should or shouldn’t do with professional hockey future.
“There’s a lot of voices and a lot of influence come from different places—and I do really value those opinions and I value that the support—and other people are saying this stuff because they see something that maybe I don’t feel, like I should come here for this reason or that,” Johnson said. “But, for me, I just spent time in myself. I know my own heart and I know what I want to do with my future, so at the end of the day, I want to be right in my own heart.”
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Johnson’ wrapped up his college career with a degree from Minnesota. After all, it’s been four years there and that’s the way things go. He had another year of eligibility thanks to COVID-19 affecting multiple seasons, so there was the opportunity to go back to school to make one more run at a national championship. The Golden Gophers had a great team and will have another fantastic team again next season and nowhere loves its college hockey more than Minnesota. You couldn’t blame him if he wanted to run it back one more time. After all, Logan Cooley is going back for another season after his brilliant freshman season. But pro hockey is his future, it was just a matter of whether he would play it with the Sabres organization or elsewhere.
In the end, Buffalo was the way for him.
“Obviously there’s so many great options, and playing hockey is just so fun, to have been able to play it anywhere, it’s just a privilege and opportunity,” Johnson said. “I think there’s something special here with the staff and the culture this team has and it’s definitely trending on the upward and it’s noticeable. It’s cool even what’s happening in the city. I know Buffalo is a major sports city and it was cool seeing them rally behind Damar Hamlin and seeing the support of the fan base and I want to be definitely part of something like that where it’s bigger than the game.”
Johnson’s raw numbers don’t grab you by the face. In an era where defensemen are becoming more noticeable for piling up points, he was a steady defender who could chip with offense and used his superb skating and speed to both get plays set up and to cover the back end. In four years and 143 games, his college career ended with 59 points including nine goals. He had a career-high in points last season with 19, but a career-high in goals this season with four. He’s not Rasmus Dahlin or Owen Power, but he doesn’t need to be either.
Defensive responsibility and the capability of making a great first pass from his zone is what the organization wants from him and the capability to handle the NHL level someday. He’s unlikely to get a taste of AHL competition in these playoffs, particularly after not playing the past month-plus to wrap up school, but when training camp convenes in September, it’ll be time to show what he can do.
“(Johnson’s) been on one of the best teams in the country,” Americans coach Seth Appert said. “He’s one of the best defending players on a really good defensive team. He had a lot of the hard matchups, played against the NHL-caliber players in a really good league in the Big 10. So, we know how talented he is and we’re just excited to have him in this organization. Whether it’s for the stretch run for us now in the playoffs, who knows, but certainly in the next couple of years. He’s a really, really talented young prospect. But we’ll see what happens.”
This is just the beginning for Johnson and it’s kind of wild that he’s here in the flesh because if you asked around the league, the prevailing thought was he was going to sign somewhere else once time ran out on the Sabres’ draft rights. After all, his NHL veteran father, Craig Johnson, is an assistant coach with the Anaheim Ducks and he calls California home. It would’ve been very easy for him to slot into the Ducks lineup right away and play for his old man.
But the Ducks aren’t as close as the Sabres are to the playoffs and their future is still murky, albeit with alluring star power with Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry, and whoever Anaheim takes with the No. 2 pick in June, most likely Adam Fantilli from the University of Michigan. Those are a lot of maybes whereas the Sabres have some absolutes in Dahlin, Power, Tage Thompson, and Dylan Cozens among others. Buffalo’s organizational depth chart on defense also isn’t quite so deep.
Dahlin, Power, Mattias Samuelsson, and Henri Jokiharju make up their top-four right now with Jacob Bryson, Riley Stillman, and Ilya Lyubushkin locked in and long-term prospects like Nikita Novikov, Vsevolod Komarov each signed and due to play in Rochester next season and Mats Lindgren in the WHL. The opportunity for Johnson to force the issue to make the NHL roster out of camp next season is there which would get him right into the mix on a team sky-high with playoff aspirations.
As much as the culture sells itself, opportunity does it too. However this goes for Johnson, it’s a positive development for him and the Sabres. He’ll have the chance to seize the day and the Sabres will have another young, talented player in the fold.