The Book on Kent Johnson
Detailing his Game with Film, Advocating for his Role as a Second Wave Center, and Examining how the Blue Jackets can Optimize his Talent
Earlier this year, just prior to season’s end, I took a look at some of Kent Johnson’s underlying metrics and made the assertion that while his 2023-24 season felt bad, in many categories he improved as a player.
Kent Johnson found himself in Pascal Vincent’s doghouse. Perhaps that was Pascal’s way of demanding stardom and enforcing accountability but in another way it could have also been preventing it.
Doghouse is maybe a strong word but strict deployment away from top forwards is certainly a very specific and difficult situation for a young and skilled forward. When compared to his deployment under Brad Larsen, he had far fewer minutes with top linemates.
I have the timestamp linked in this video. Pascal Vincent fields a question from Coby Maier, then of 1st Ohio Battery, in regards to what Coby perceived as a good performance from Kent Johnson.
Pascal Vincent’s responded in as hostile a manner as you could expect from a head coach and asserted that Kent Johnson’s not blocking a point shot cost them the game.
It’s not so much that Kent Johnson doesn’t deserve criticism for not blocking that point shot, it’s a key part of the Vegas defensive structure and especially important in creating quick-strike counter-attack offense. It’s moreso that Vincent was eager to criticise and shows a very mistake-oriented mindset.
In Pascal Vincent’s recent interview with the Athletic, after joining the Laval Rocket, he said the following:
“So what happened in Columbus, what I can tell you is I’ve learned a ton. Did I make any mistakes? Of course I did. I made some mistakes, but I’m learning, I’m growing. Even though I’ve been coaching 30 years, it’s a never-ending process to learn and to grow and to make mistakes and not to repeat them. So it was a great year in that regard.”
While I wouldn’t categorize Pascal Vincent as unfair some of his comments across his press conferences indicate he is at least mistake-oriented.
Side note, I checked my game report and did not have good clips from this game because it was broadcast on BallySports exclusively.
In Pascal’s defense, it wasn’t a particularly good game from the line. Opposite of his defense, Justin Danforth did not work with Cole Sillinger and Kent Johnson and their line did have the more dangerous shots (though they missed the net).
The point of bringing up Pascal Vincent in a Kent Johnson breakdown is that he, and the club at large, are responsible for some of the bad vibes around Kent Johnson. These “vibes” coupled with some obvious mishandles, uncharacteristic mistakes and a posture that is a little too easy to knock of balance lead to the widespread feeling that Kent Johnson regressed and that he had a poor sophomore season.
The Stats & Cohort
While I believe my move to DataWrapper made the data more pleasant than my previous rudimentary excel work, and I would also make changes to the cohort and potential data utilized from that perspective, the conclusions still stand.
Under the hood, Kent Johnson was improved in most every facet compared to last season. Largely, I think the excitement of a new player, in contrast to widespread criticism, and his powerplay production lead to incredible vibes in 2022-2023 that perhaps obscured some underlying poor performance.
Kent Johnson played with worse linemates, had more difficult zonal deployment and produced more at even strength. He had no powerplay production, suffering from a 3.57% On-Ice Shooting Percentage (Fantilli similarly struggled on the powerplay and had a 5.75 On-Ice SH%).
After Kent Johnson’s return from the AHL he was one of the best underlying performers on the team ranking, at 5v5 Score and Venue Adjusted, 4th in CF% (49.73%), 1st in xGF% (52.26%) and 3rd in GF% (56.58%).
According to PuckIQ, which filters opponents into competition buckets, Kent Johnson was the best performer in their DFF% (Dangerous Fenwick For Percentage) at 50.6%.
While he was among the most sheltered (only Alex Nylander, Sean Kuraly and Mathieu Olivier received more deployment against lowest competition relative to elite competition among Blue Jackets forwards) he still performed better than team average against each competition bucket.
Some of these numbers may be distorted as a result of Kent Johnson’s very low-event minutes but that might also be part of Johnson’s quality over quantity style. A tendency that reflects itself in Johnson’s ability to outscore his sometimes pedestrian possession shares.
Kent Johnson’s AllThreeZones tracked data isn’t present in necessary volume to analyze the differences between 2022-23 and 2023-24 via Playercards. Largely, a vast majority of the Blue Jackets’ tracked games occurred in November when Kent Johnson was sent to the AHL (where he scored 15 points in 10 games).
This is his playercard from 2022-23. He wasn’t a good creator of offense but showed glimmers of hope in his passing in the center lane and in creating rush offense. His play on zone entries looked like a player who was destined to be a high quality top six player in the future.
In the above link, I detailed the hand-tracked data from Blue Jackets games that occurred in the calendar year 2024. There are extremely few games and it’s irresponsible to draw any major conclusions from this data.
That said, pretty much all of the clips (the silent ones are the only outside the sample) taken from my film recording were pulled from the time period that Corey Sznajder tracked in 2024.
It’s difficult to translate the Z-score of the cards to the raw data of the graphs but your best bet is to utilize the color coded zones. The zones from the graphs in the linked breakdown represent a standard deviation from the mean.
In terms of translation to the cards, the middle darker colored lines (blue for forwards) would be indicative of 0 Z-score, and outside of the shaded (blue) zones would be greater or less than a value of ±1 on the cards.
In terms of raw offense, Kent Johnson showed dramatic improvement in shot assists and slight decrease in raw shots/60.
In terms of high danger passes and shots off of high danger passes, I he was dramatically improved. Again, small sample, but his performance over the 2023-24 sample (2.37 HD Passes/60, 2.37 Shots off HD Passes/60) would put him in league with Artemi Panarin and Brady Tkachuk over their whole season in 2022-2023 and equivalent to Jordan Kyrou, Nikolaj Ehlers in 2023-24.
In terms of transition, Kent Johnson’s entry volume and carry % went from above league average (18.02 entries/60, 61.8 carry%) to below average (17.79 entries/60, 40% carry%) in both cases. In terms of quality of transition, Kent Johnson’s Entries Leading to Chances/60 fell off but he maintained his Entries w/ Passing Plays/60.
I believe Pascal Vincent advocated for the Blue Jackets to dump the puck and get into their forecheck structure and really despised blue line turnovers. We’ll have plenty of time to look at the tape later.
The most notable area of performance for Kent Johnson, at least in the microstat review, was his capacity to drive zone exits with safety and at volume. There’s a lot to dig into there, so I’ll just get into it.
Starting with the Weakness
Let’s take our medicine before moving on to the more exciting part of Kent Johnson’s season. By no means should we dismiss the faults that Kent Johnson displayed this season. If he is to improve, he must take ownership of his flaws and work diligently to correct or avoid them in the future.
Specifically, there was an unusual occurrence of mishandles, bobbled pucks and falling over during otherwise basic, usually backwards, skating maneuvers.
In many cases, his overall sequences ended poorly like the one above. He puts in a lot of good work but has a tendency to cede advantages because he falls over, is too easily pushed off the puck, mishandles a puck in a prime scoring opportunity, over complicates a play or is indecisive and holds onto the puck too long.
These feel awful and are certainly not good but, outside of being too easily pushed off the puck, I have little reason to believe they will plague Johnson throughout his career.
There are plenty of examples in the good clips where Kent Johnson utilizes fluid skating to catch and quickly settle difficult pucks, where he uses proper body posture to protect pucks or slip wall pins and makes quick plays to teammates in better conditions.
Here, Kent Johnson shows excellent space management and creation and utilizes his unique skating to create an advantage that not many other players have access to. Unfortunately, every other offensive player has stopped moving and, instead of moving a clean and easy puck to Cole Sillinger, tries to force a pass and wastes his advantage.
His teammates didn’t help but more decisiveness and taking the easy play would lead to better results.
How To Ruin A Player
Before we go further, I think it’s imperative we reconsider Jack Han’s “How to Ruin a Player”.
If we allow our understanding of the player to revolve around weaknesses we’re severely limiting their ceiling. If we’re insecure and focus on addressing these weaknesses, and they spend significant time addressing them, every player is going to look like the ones that came before. They are going to be molded and defined not by the potential of what they could be but by their lowest common denominator skill.
We’re not trying to create good 2015 NHL players, we’re trying to create good 2025+ NHL players. To access that, we have to be open to allowing a player a new way of doing things. Largely, when addressing a players’ weaknesses we must do it through the lens of opportunity.
Technically we (you and I, dear reader) have no influence on these players. Still, an observation or fan focus on a players strengths would the most desirable position. We can instead enjoy players for the great things they can do instead of becoming absorbed in the negatives.
Whether or not you should be concerned with his issues and mistakes comes down to your belief in Kent Johnson’s process. Process has become a buzzword that has lost some of its efficacy because of overuse and generalization in the greater lexicon.
At the end of the day the concept is, fundamentally, a player or person’s approach to improving every day. Process isn’t just a player’s Zone Entries/60 or xGF/60, these are more representive of performance though still underlying and potentially predictive of future results success.
To steal a Tortorella term process is about how a player goes about their business. In other words: how any person plies their trade in all of the moments outside of games and inside and between practices.
Kent Johnson was, I believe, drafted in part because he had an otherwise excellent process.
“I’ve never seen a kid do that with the detail that he brings to his training. You start multiplying that day by day over a number of years, then mix in his frame, his body makeup, which allows him to do things that most players really can’t do with his flexibility and you see a guy doing stuff on the ice that you really don’t see. His skill set is different from everybody’s.”
Did something change this past season? Was he spending less time on-ice and more time in the gym? If so, it’s possible he was taken out of his usual rhythm and as a result had uncharacteristic mistakes. That isn’t to say this change was inherently bad if Johnson’s conditioning or gym work wasn’t at NHL level, but that it may have taken him away from his true strength.
Consider this quote pulled from the above Kent Johnson breakdown.
Perhaps next season he can get back to what made him special. I was reminded of the off-ice habits that made him such a tantalizing player and draft pick when I was reading a quote from Nikita Kucherov about his MVP season this year.
“You look at all the best players in different sports, they consistently work on their skills, and same here. Be better than you were yesterday. That’s the mentality that should be for everybody else but it’s not. Everyone is spending more time in the gym than on the ice. My mentality is to be on the ice more than anyone.”
The Skating Improvement Opportunity
While Kent Johnson is almost always going to be playing from a physical deficit, I believe small changes to his underlying skating could pay massive dividends. His tendency to slip and fall while moving backwards could point to a relative instability worth ironing out.
Stability
If his foot stability is improved his kinetic chain should only see downstream (or up-stream depending on perspective) improvement. Kent Johnson was, at times, clearly let down by his one-timer in motion despite having otherwise good mechanics, I believe it’s his feet that sap his ability to drive clean blade contact.
With better “moving,” I’m admittedly out of my depth here, I believe improvement to his outside edges (or maybe increased core or lower body engagement) could result in better stability. With improved stability perhaps he can decrease the occurrence of these confusing mistakes and increase his on-ice skill-expression.
Fewer mistakes, fewer bad vibes from strange endings to solid possessions, cleaner puck handling and shooting.
The reason I bring these stability improvements up is because he already has a projectable skill platform. He uses impressive posture to protect the puck, reads body language and wields momentum against opponents and uses his deceptive body language to keep his moving and slip checks along the boards.
I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s adept at using the opponents momentum against them but he shows some flashes of these skills. On the above retrieval, he absorbs the backpressure, manages the puck with an off-boards underhandle, and spins to invert the pressure.
On these defensive plays and puck retrievals, Johnson uses body contact and spins off of the pressure to continue with middle ice availability.
Small improvements to the underlying physical abilities, lower-body strength, core strength, or skating technique improvements, whichever it may be, should have easily compounded effects.
Acceleration
Unless Kent Johnson improves his first step acceleration, he’ll always find himself in the above sort of positions, which is to say probably not solo breaking defenses at high speed like Mat Barzal or William Nylander. Small improvements will buy him more time and space which will mean he has just that much more time to utilize his strengths.
The first pass is off-target. Still, Kent Johnson is an absolute wizard puck handler. If he gets a better touch and underhandles the puck to the other side of his body and up-ice, he can get his feet moving with more intensity.
From what we can see, that underhandle could be a massive risk if he’s not aware of whether or not Tampa’s defenseman is pinching. Kent Johnson’s pre-scanning habits make this a reasonable ask though his last minute reacting to an off-target pass makes it less-reasonable.
Furthermore, he could have offset the poor pass by simply bumping the puck to Marchenko and moving off the wall, he should let the puck do the work.
These are difficult of-the-moment decisions to make but Kent Johnson is certainly capable of making them. In plenty of other situations, as we’ll see later, Kent Johnson uses underhandles and scanning habits to create magic. Increasing the frequency and consistency is key and should come with time and intention.
This is perhaps the most simple example to represent how Kent Johnson could use high level skills to mask and mitigate a deficiency. To lean into a strength rather than focus on a weakness.
From the pass-to-move perspective, the Blue Jackets as a whole struggled. There weren’t many small passes and there were quite a lot of forwards catching passes from a standstill at key points in transition. For Kent Johnson, this type of early passing and play-building is going to be crucial for success.
If the Blue Jackets continue to run this extended carry, north-focused, stationary blue-line system, Johnny Gaudreau also utilized extended carries and suffered at the blue line, Kent Johnson may always stand at odds.
Later in that sequence, as Kent Johnson skates through the neutral zone, we can see more of his physical protection skills. He skates into hands and removes his ability to make a play on the puck. This buys Johnson surety of execution and is a technique he often uses to overcome his pure physical strength deficit.
Offense
High Danger Passing
What has become the hallmark of Kent Johnson’s game is his ability to get pucks off the back wall and onto an unmarked teammate’s stick for a scoring chance. In contrast to Adam Fantilli’s hasty forcing-it attempts, Kent Johnson makes it look simple and almost obvious.
The reason he’s able to find these opportunities at such a high frequency is one of his greatest habits: scanning. Kent Johnson is a prolific shoulder-checker and ice-scanner. He is constantly building a mental map and, in this situation, utilizes it to devastating effect.
Furthermore, he’s incredibly manipulative, deceptive and creative. He sells false information to defenders, disguising body language is intuitive and habitual for him. With creative puck handling and behind the back passes to space he frequently cashes in on near-net defenders who believe they are adequately defending.
Where he can improve, from this perspective, is through greater capacity to absorb contact and even better utilization of mental maps. He’s already scanning, building maps and staying moving but if he can even better stall and buy time for teammates it will be an even more consistent and reliable method of danger generation.
Kent Johnson Shooting and Space Creation for Shooting
Kent Johnson has, perhaps, become an underrated shooter and goal scorer. His diminuitive stature and pass-first mindset betray a middle-shooting skillset that is quite good.
He puts his wrist shots in clever spots and, perhaps more importantly, knows how to create space for himself to shoot. He’s constantly moving to prepare eventual shooting space.
Johnson is incredibly aware of ice-geography and constantly looks for dot-support when the puck is on the back wall and looks for weak-side dot-releases as the puck moves down the opposite wall.
Don’t be afraid to rewatch the above clips and notice how his movement revolves around the faceoff dots.
Off Wall Handling, Pressure Soaking, Condition Improving
Condition improvement is a vital skill domain for any hockey player who wants to impact games in the NHL going forward. This domain is perhaps a distinct area of important improvement for Kent Johnson but one that also shows his distinct tactical mindset.
Over various clips, Kent Johnson is utilizing trigger zones on the half walls to initiate off-wall handling moves. His techniques could use refinement, and will be refined as he continues to go about his business, but his already present desire to improve the quality of the possession should serve as a continued wellspring of improvement and positive performance.
While in a dot-support position for teammates on the walls Kent Johnson has the capacity to soak pressure, draw multiple defenders, and find teammates in better space. Having multiple skills and methods of impact from common, high frequency, on-ice positions is a fantastic way to start to warp the game to your skillset.
When near the half-walls and while facing away from the boards, Johnson looks to make a dangerous pass. Many times that is to a teammate behind the net or, in the case of an intelligent pass to Cole Sillinger, cross-ice.
After each of these moves, whether it’s making a handling move off the wall and finding a teammate, drawing defense pressure or moving the pass cross-ice, Johnson’s next move is always to beat his check to the net. He’s constantly slipping behind the defense and taking movement tempo early.
In many ways, these moves are very similar to Zach Werenski’s methods of post-pinch danger creation and, though he didn’t find many points, an incredibly effective way to threaten defenses.
In Zone Off Puck Movement
What most impressed me on film review was his in-zone movement away from the puck.
I’ve already covered some of the other, high level off-puck movement that he uses (dot-support, back-door net crashing) but it’s his movement through the middle of the ice and around the net that has me particularly fascinated.
As play moves down the boards and towards the net, Johnson attacks downhill and through the middle of the ice.
If the puck squirts loose, he can jump on it for rebound chances. If not, he’s got downhill speed and has priority to loose pucks whether it’s getting first touch on loose pucks in the middle or whether he’s simply first to the boards.
When his teammates are away from the net, Kent Johnson ably fills the net-front role, however, this is not your father’s net front play; it’s all done in motion. Kent Johnson doesn’t wait in the crease and eat cross checks, he stays in constant motion using the back of the net to create confusion and space for himself. Instead of large goalie-screens, he chooses flash screens and tips from outside the field of vision.
If there isn’t an imminent shot threat or anyone else moving, Johnson moves away from the net to soft-ice near the goal-line boards or up into the high-ice near the blueline. From those positions he is a particularly effective play-builder.
This movement, and these recoveries, are a high level way for Kent Johnson to make up for his lack of physical stature. Every millisecond Johnson has first on puck at the boards means more time for him to deceive, scan and avoid battles altogether.
Once teammates catch onto his tendencies and start trying to find him in these places, or even start selecting better shots and hitting the net, he’ll be well positioned to cash in.
As Johnson continues to go through this motion, and especially if he gets to play with smart and capable players, he’ll be able to generate savvier movement and find his own preferred patterns for high level generation.
Ice Geography According to Kent Johnson
Forgive me for this crude graph but I though I’d use the actual geography of the rink to illustrate some of the creation framework that Kent Johnson is utilizing to inform his motion.
The Red Hashes on the half-wall are major decision points for him. Here he occupies a triple threat posture where he utilizes off-wall handling moves to attack the interior, creates an exchange (either via passing to the middle point or via hand-off as the d-man moves low) with his defenseman or pushes the puck back to the blue area, as in a traditional cycle, and moves to the middle for dot support.
The Blue Hashes are one of his favorite areas to create quite strike danger. At least one defenseman, and even the goalie, will be forced to look away from the threats behind them and there’s plenty of advantages to be found there.
Green Hashes, indicative of dot support, are his support positions when the puck is beneath the dots and he’s on the strong side or as it moves from the blue line down, when he’s on the weak side.
The Yellow Motion indicates his framework for occupying the netfront role. If the puck is coming on net from the point, he’s looking to move around the net to get free and cause confusion. If the puck isn’t being shot he’ll release to the walls to try to pull a defensemen away from the middle. If they don’t follow, it’s a free pass where Johnson has time and space to try to create something.
The Purple motion is what he’s doing when someone else is already occupying the netfront and he’s in the position to support a defenseman at the point with possession. As the puck goes to the net, so does he. Don’t get too caught up in the complete triangle, he nearly always bends his routes to go through the middle and lands in soft space for rebounds.
As he continues to refine his reads and increase his understanding of NHL offense, his timing and intuition will only improve. If he’s played with talented teammates perhaps that refinement and play-building will happen faster. If he shares his reads and opinions after shifts or during video reviews perhaps it will happen even faster.
Powerplay
While both Kent Johnson and Adam Fantilli may be partially responsible for their poor on-ice shooting percentage on the powerplay each has tools and skills that provide reason for hope for their powerplay futures. Coupled with the potential numbers regression and a new coach there’s room for explosive growth in powerplay production for both players.
Kent Johnson has the deception and creative skill to be a highly productive driver of powerplay offense.
His station on the right half-wall is an excellent fit and he clearly studies Nikita Kucherov’s approach to tactical bumper passing. With a strong one-timer threat across the ice he could force defenses to pick their poison.
What makes him excellent for this role is his capacity to massage time and space and create hesitation in defenders with a deceptive and balanced posture and manipulative puck handling. If he can diffuse pressure from this position, he’ll earn more opportunities at creating danger.
I believe his skillset, especially the motion, craftiness and quick mental map no-look passing, could also make him a dynamic netfront or behind the net powerplay threat as well.
There’s still plenty of room to grow. If given continued powerplay minutes, Kent Johnson should develop an increased understanding of the rhythym of powerplay offense.
Like his 5v5 play, he needs to better learn when moving the puck to the open person quickly is the best play. For now, long possessions that die on his stick should be considered growing pains on the road to being a good creator.
The most important area of improvement for the young playmaker will be in entering the zone. If he wants to guarantee a spot on PP1, he’ll have to be able to replace Gaudreau’s carrying talents in short order.
He has the handling talent to manufacture entries through set defenses but without improvements to puck carrying in the critical moments before and after the blue line, and perhaps more freedom to try at 5v5, it may be difficult for Johnson to develop the requisite confidence and attacking mindset necessary for continued succes.
Transition
Entry Anchor
As an entry anchor, the nearly stationary position on the wall at the blue line on entries, Kent Johnson has some room to improve. There aren’t many clips here because it wasn’t really a frequently utilized area of Kent Johnson’s game (or maybe I just didn’t clip this detail well in January and February).
I can say, through looking through plenty of Fantilli and Sillinger clips that Kent Johnson certainly did spend a lot of time standing at the blue line and not receiving passes.
He shows an eagerness to utilize small area passes but didn’t have many opportunities to deliver them to players with a speed differential. When he did find the center in space, Adam Fantilli immediately put it into the net.
For Kent Johnson to become a consistently impactful creator of rush offense he’ll have to better manage his speed on approach to the blue line and work with his teammates to find space and “mini 2v1s.”
Small area passes after entry are an incredible way of dictating your intentions to your teammates while increasing the pace of overall play. Pass, then move, while the puck does the work. Any improvements to his ability to play the puck to space with control will pay immediate dividends.
These space passes are difficult but Matt Duchene’s performance with Dallas is a prime example of how powerful they can be.
Largely, there’s good reason to believe that Kent Johnson can develop this skill rather quickly. He’s show the ability and intention to make area plays and may be the best, most intentional puck dumper for recovery on the team.
Center Lane Passing
The above clips are a selection of Kent Johnson’s passing in the center lane of the neutral zone. He’s got good ideas and generally moves the puck to players in better time or space than he is. He can pass forehand or backhand which makes him a really good option to be carrying the puck in the middle of the ice.
Unfortunately, while he was also an eager center-lane carrier, when he passed the puck wide he had trouble getting the puck back. He generally did a good job of slipping between checks post-wide-pass but the entire team really lacked the sophistication to create downhill chances after this motion.
Most of the time, the middle speed player went directly to the net and didn’t find successful 2v1s. I believe this was partially intentional as soft dumps behind the net, initiating the forecheck structure, seemed to be such a strong Plan B it felt more like Plan A.
If the Blue Jackets prioritized creating 2v1s and spatial-possessional rush play it’s possible that any or all of their centers or wide entry-anchors would have had more success at creating rush offense. Then, they could have been selecting between sharper angled entries, the possibility to set moving screens between the anchor and nearest defender or skating hard closer to the net.
It’s also entirely possible that this flaw had more to do with breakout difficulties, speed and space management prior to hitting the blue line or some other roster-wide deficiencies.
At this point, it’s hard to say where exactly Kent Johnson skillset lies in this type of rush play. Given what we’ve seen elsewhere, and what we will see with some of the more complete clips, his tendency to play between checks, create a mental map of the ice and make strong lateral passes should make him a good player at identifying and creating mini 2v1s in closer possessional support.
League-wide, the best users of this center-speed, wide-anchor structure are Montreal with Suzuki-Caufield, Dallas with Duchene-Seguin and Florida with Barkov-Reinhart and Tkachuk-Bennett-Verhaeghe.
Entries with Delays
Where Kent Johnson does excel is in creating delay opportunities and in finding second layers on the rush. He’s an excellent user of the middle on entry and loves to surf through the high ice while leveraging his handling ability.
In contrast to Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson is actually much better at manipulating his defender to “set the edge” and get his feet to face in a direction that increases the success of the eventual cutback.
Even if Johnson doesn’t create huge space on cutbacks he instantly adopts deceptive handling posture which buys more time for passes and plays when the defender approaches.
He generally identifies passing lanes quickly but there’s plenty of room for him to improve mental map utilization and earlier manipulation to create more potential windows. The next step, for him, is to chain his skills together to create more complex and effective moves in tighter time windows.
Whether that higher level understanding of player movement and identification of potential future plays emerges as Johnson continues to adjust to the NHL or whether he runs into a processing limitation remains to be seen.
From this scatterplot, taken from the 2024 Microstats Review, we can see that Kent Johnson was a high volume exit generator as well as incredibly efficient. A wing driving zone exits with great success isn’t exactly common but it is a tactical feature of plenty of breakouts.
I still wouldn’t conclude that he’s offering more value than, say, Zach Werenski or any other defenseman, but he was quite clearly a key cog for the Blue Jackets in this time frame.
The Blue Jackets absolutely loved running their breakouts through the half wall. For Kent Johnson, excellence in transition starts with his multifaceted ability to create from the defensive zone half wall.
Half Wall Passes to Middle
Johnson loved bumping the puck to the center moving with speed, if the option was available. On his off-wing these passes were direct and precise. On this strong-side, he had to be more creative and use indirect passes.
It’s worth mentioning that I’ve pretty much only included successful instances of these exits. He’s obviously not perfect and it’s certainly a limitation of my process.
I am running off of clips that I cut when doing game-reviews. I don’t have the capacity to pull every shift or situation easily. If so, it would be much easier to conduct a more thorough analysis of his ability in each different situation. It’s an area I plan to for improve next season.
Still, Kent Johnson utilized his pre-scanning and, at his best in these situations, got his feet moving and therefore drew the pinching defenseman or forecheck towards him as he created better space for the center moving up the wall.
These aren’t flashy plays but they increase the teamwide pace of neutral zone attack very effectively.
Half Wall Crosslane Passes
Many times, Kent Johnson didn’t utilize bumps to speed for the center but instead peeled off the wall and moved the puck across the ice to the weak side player with speed. This is an incredibly effective technique for creating transition offense especially when you have activating defensemen.
On each of these passes, Kent Johnson is beating defensive layers and giving the puck to a player with significantly more time and space, commonly referred to as improving the puck condition.
Pay special attention to Kent Johnson’s movement post-pass as well. He’s great at shaping his routes and finding a position in the second wave of the attack.
Half Wall Middle Carries
When Johnson didn’t find either of the above options he was more than happy to bounce off the wall and take the middle of the ice to create transition.
In these situations, the opposition neutral zone forecheck was nearly set but Johnson was able to utilize his high, deceptive posture to break through the first layer and his incredibly smooth handling ability to maintain the middle of the ice through the neutral zone.
Oftentimes he looked to pass wide and slip between checks to offer support options for the entry-anchor.
Across many of these sequences, notice how many times Kent Johnson ever gets a return puck after making his exit or entry moves (it’s not many). I believe this rare occurrence is to explain for his general lack of rush offense.
If Johnson is doing the difficult work to create transition he’s relying on quality of teammates to get pucks back and get involved in offense. In Darryl Belfry’s estimations this is somewhat like the Bergeron Dilemma.
Opposing defenses, now set in their neutral zone structures, had ample time to adjust to these long carries and the Blue Jackets, outside of rare exceptions, had trouble finding open ice and thereby had creating offense.
Perhaps Kent Johnson’s tactic selection and the management of his teammates’ speed has something to do with the lack of offense. It seems more likely, though, that the trouble was with a system demand for a middle carrier to move the puck to a wide stationary anchor without the sophistication to exploit that situation.
For the most part, it looked like the objective for the Blue Jackets was to head North at all costs, only looking to find the middle well after entries and well after the open space in the middle had pretty much expired.
In effect, they traded off creating speed differentials for instead straight ahead speed. True rush creation rarely comes from breaking down set defenses but in pushing and pulling defensive layers to create those speed differentials.
Still, Kent Johnson did the hard part. He got the puck out and put his body between checks in the middle of the ice. Outside of Dmitri Voronkov, few Blue Jackets sought to build plays via return passes in the neutral zone.
Even so, Kent Johnson remained one of the most dangerous long-range entry passers on the team with a near uncanny ability to open players cross zone just after entries. The final three clips demonstrate his aptitude in this area.
In essence, Kent Johnson was a focal point of exiting the zone and utilized his skillset to get pucks out of the zone instead of improving downstream rush offense. Perhaps that explains why his AllThreeZones transition stats fell off but his RAPM Corsi Differential improved.
Neutral Zone Re-Entry
As mentioned in The Book on Adam Fantilli, the Blue Jackets were a fundamentally poor Neutral Zone Re-entry team. This method of creating rush offense post-exit kill/entry kill involves a defenseman recovering a puck and then forwards playing small area games on re-entry to exploit the speed differential of transition defenseman joining the rush or quickly re-gapping.
Blue Jackets defenseman like Zach Werenski, Damon Severson, David Jiricek and potentially Denton Mateychuk should be well poised to find these passes.
Kent Johnson, though the team didn’t prefer or feature this type of offense, was an excellent forward at creating from this position. His ability to anticipate possession change, slip behind checks and create transition through small-area 2v1s fit this type of creation extremely well.
When not occupying the center lane, Johnson was also adept at utilizing his one-touch passing to find the center and create 2v1s in that was as well.
Defense
Retrievals
Low in the zone, Johnson wields his pre-touch scanning to full effect. He knows where most of his teammates are on the ice and can deliver the puck with one or two touches and with precision. On retrievals, he doesn’t over complicate the play. He touches the puck to a teammate and makes sure the forechecker is occupied.
While this may fall under a transition umbrella, Kent Johnson’s understanding of space and movement can make him an asset in ensuring possession is fully converted to the Blue Jackets’ side. He doesn’t have the benefit of being an overwhelming physical presence beneath the dots but he can make up for that with solid puck moving.
Neutral Zone Tracking
In the neutral zone, I think some of Kent Johnson’s work has gone a bit underrated. While he isn’t a powerful forechecker or otherwise stalwart defender, and his effort this past season wasn’t always consistent, he did display moments of diligent and intelligent backchecking and neutral zone defense.
Kent Johnson, like most other areas, is at his best patrolling open ice. On the backcheck he is a stick-oriented tracker. When reviewing tape of some of the best defensive centers, especially William Karlsson, I found a maniacal focus on getting puck carriers onto their backhand by sitting in their hip pocket.
In the above clips you can see that exact approach. While he doesn’t have the skating and physicality to disrupt possession outright he did show the ability to prevent opposition puck carriers from making simple plays.
Exit Kill and Neutral Zone Set
When Kent Johnson is ahead of the play or the furthest back on the ice, he’s got plenty of neutral zone defensive skill. When he can use his anticipation and smart stick work to stay on top of his checks, he’s a surprisingly disruptive neutral zone forechecker.
For Kent Johnson this was a highly positive development for his capacity to drive play. Ff these tendencies can be nurtured Kent Johnson can be a part of a more aggressive Blue Jackets neutral zone defense. Perhaps, even, it will allow him to share ice as a positive influence for the top forwards on the roster.
Point Defenseman Defending
In the defensive zone, Kent Johnson showed flashes of becoming a diligent defensive player. He doesn’t have the raw strength to force turnovers at will and his position as a winger doesn’t necessarily provide opportunity to create a huge amount of value but the framework for greater impact was present.
The Blue Jackets defensive structure asked wings to collapse in the slot. At his best, Kent Johnson was frequently anticipating holes in netfront coverage and quickly moving to those passing lanes.
The key to improvement, especially in overall impact, is going to be in consistency and reliability. If he wants to become a trusted player in defensive zone situations he’ll have to be everpresent.
His best area of impact, outside of his puck moving, was his capacity to wield his array of skills to disrupt point play from defensemen.
In the clip against Josh Morrissey, you can see how his frequent scanning prepares him to take passing options away. While closing the distance to Morrissey he reads the defenseman’s body language and utilizes an active stick to create hesitation until he can poke the puck away.
If his mindset is geared this way, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kent Johnson becoming a good top of zone penalty killer. His active stick, reading of posture and body language and anticipation could make him a surprisingly disruptive +1 (in terms of the Blue Jackets’ Wedge + 1) role player.
In all likelihood he’s better used in an offensive role but if the player gets up for that kind of role and icetime, and has the conditioning to handle the increased workload, I wouldn’t mind giving him a chance.
Putting it All Together
On this shift, we get to see a good breadth of Kent Johnson’s skillset. We start with a defensive zone faceoff where Kent Johnson finds soft-ice underneath his defenseman and supports the breakout. He controls the puck and skates backward to open space while drawing a forechecker. Then, he passes the puck to Adam Boqvist who has an equally good view of the ice but doesn’t have any incoming pressure.
From there, Boqvist finds Damon Severson for the exit but Severson tries something a little too fancy. I believe he was trying to lay the puck for Kent Johnson to dump and chase (a rim around the boards into a numbers advantage is a nifty idea) but it’s a pretty complicated idea for a low-value play.
Kent Johnson comes out of the pack, and off the wall, with the loose puck and moves through the center lane skating into puck support with Kirill Marchenko. After gaining the entry at an angle, he moves between Marchenko and his check to create space setting a soft pick.
This movement is exactly the kind of small 2v1 post-entry pass movement that many of the better possessional transition teams utilize. A good sign for Kent Johnson’s continued transitional growth.
Cody Ceci doesn’t move quickly to take Marchenko so the end result is that Johnson occupies two defensemen and gives Marchenko plenty of time to make a play. He puts the puck on net and fishes for a rebound.
The rebound pops out to an Oiler with Severson in a pinch position. It’s a slow pinch so Edmonton has an opportunity to break out. Kent Johnson sees the developing play, acknowledges Severson’s on-puck pressure, and moves quickly to track through the middle seal the puck from its nearest support.
Immediately after establishing possession, Johnson is looking to create and find Voronkov at the back post. If Johnson’s between the skates pass was perhaps an inch more accurate, that’s an incredibly high danger scoring chance. Instead he recovers the loose puck, diffuses imminent pressure and puts the puck in a safe position behind the net.
Johnson then moves to patrol the high ice in an ambiguous possession scenario and is quick to move to the weak side when he reads Marchenko’s recovery. The Oilers move to cover Johnson’s movement and, in response to Voronkov’s short side attempt and rebound, Johnson stays in motion through the crease.
The forecheck continues with excellent pressure from Kirill Marchenko where Kent Johnson’s high-ice coverage shines once again. He recovers an errant up-wall pass and immediately postures to attack. He quickly passes for a high-danger tip play and another put back attempt on the rebound.
In this shift we get to see: manipulation of space for possession in low defensive zone scenarios, sophisticated center lane movement and entry passing plays, motion through the middle of the offensive zone and first priority for puck recoveries after rebounds, patrolling and tracking the middle high ice as a neutral zone safety net, quick linking of offense and defense and high level crease passing.
This clip is perhaps a bit less complete but we still get to see a chained-together sequence of some of his best habits and moves.
Kent Johnson is in position and scanning and is ready to contest possession on the half wall. He isn’t really early and would be better off maintaining a more balanced posture, room for improvement, but the Rangers’ forward fails to peel the puck off the wall and now he’s in a good position to start some offense.
He exits the zone in a more or less even player-advantage state but Alex Nylander’s movement to threaten the back line created some space. If Erik Gudbranson was a more offensively inclined defenseman, he would probably be striding harder to be even on exit which would have given the Blue Jackets more options later on entry.
Instead, Kent Johnson peels off the wall, moves through the neutral zone and crosses the blue line in the middle lane at an angle. If Erik Gudbranson had matched that exit, he could be wider of Alex Nylander and timing his approach to the blue line quite perfectly for a wide entry with speed.
It’s also possible a backhand feed to Cole Sillinger, followed by attacking the heels of the Adam Fox, could have ceded second layer middle ice to Erik Gudbranson for a middle rush play. Still Sillinger’s speed management and posture were poor and both Adam Fox and a backchecker made the window of opportunity small.
In any case, none of those options happened but Kent Johnson offers a clever handling move to draw the middle defenseman, actually forward Vinny Trocheck, and gets him off balance while drawing the stick of the wide defenseman in Ryan Lindgren. He then slides the puck to Alex Nylander and, because of exploiting the forward’s poor gap, has slides between the checks to create a passing window.
The window is a bit too small and difficult for Alex Nylander, though there was certainly an angle to find Johnson with a slip pass under Lindgren’s stick or a high level small space pass behind his heels. Instead Nylander makes the safe play and puts the puck behind the net for a recovery.
Here, we get to see the skills Kent Johnson uses to mask his back wall strength deficiency. He gets to the puck first, fields it cleanly, deceives with his body posture and then gets his feet moving parallel to the boards. His fluid stance forces Trocheck to commit to a line for a board pin that he is soon making obsolete with slippery movement.
From there, Johnson moves off the wall. If his scanning was perfect, and with Kent Johnson sometimes you can ask for that, perhaps he finds a no-look backhand to Cole Sillinger.
Instead he keeps the puck protected inside a strong posture and moves to the wall. Once he hits the Red “decision zone” between the Rangers players he initiates an offwall handling maneuver, putting the puck near the dot in an underhandle, so that he has free stick capital to fights off the defender’s stick. Once he’s in the slot, he puts a backhand on net.
Not the most dangerous ultimate shot creation but Kent Johnson does have a good backhand. A sequence to build off of.
On this shift we get to see: neutral zone center lane utilization, crossing the blue line at an angle, rush defense manipulation followed by pass-move 2v1 exploitation, first touch on pucks with deceptive body language and slippery wall posture, clever off-wall timing and exceptional use of underhandling.
This shift against Buffalo is one of my favorite.
Prior to receiving the puck on the weak-side half-wall breakout, Johnson is maintaining spacing, getting his feet moving and constantly scanning prior to his first touch.
On reception, Buffalo has a solid wall formed and occupy every position between Johnson and his nearest support players. He stays patient, adopts a forward posture, thereby disguising intentions, and waits until the defenders moves his stick to the next threat to thread a crosslane pass to Severson who is even on exit.
It’s not a perfectly clean pass and forces Severson to go skate to stick which undermines his speed. If that puck is going to a forward, or better puck catcher, they probably adjust their posture to catch the puck more cleanly and maintain speed.
In any case, Kent Johnson moves to the middle early so as to not enter the zone with a flat wall of four people. He’s moving to create depth. At the same time, that move puts him perfectly on top of highest forward, who is also his number match in terms of the man advantage.
When Jeff Skinner tries to slide the puck to Thompson in space, Johnson is already in the passing lane. His diligence is rewarded with a free puck. From there, he peels back and raises his stick as if he’s going to try a hard rim of the puck (which is the most common action within Columbus’ neutral zone regroup).
What he does instead is a crosslane slap pass in perfect space to Ivan Provorov. He follows up that zone entry on a diagonal toward the net. The Buffalo defender matches which is when he stops near the dot for a behind the net setup from Provorov. His first movement was to get the defender to move, the second was for him to setup a shooting lane.
Unfortunately, Provorov just puts the puck on net from a dead angle instead. Kent Johnson could have stopped earlier, being a more obvious passing option, or could have continued moving in anticipation of Provorov creating a rebound. I wouldn’t necessarily blame either player but with more time to create chemistry perhaps they would create a better link.
From there, Kent Johnson finds soft space to create some downhill offense but Provorov opts for a screened point shot instead.
The most notable aspects of this shift, for me, are Kent Johnson’s capacity to continually improve the conditions of the play in the neutral zone, create layers on the rush, stay on top of the opposition transition shape while also using his anticipation and deception to quickly and dangerously link defense to offense.
The Development Matrix
Leverage/Emphasize
Ice Scanning + Mental Mapping
Fluid Puck Handling
Deceptive Body Language
In Zone Motion and Ice Geography Utilization
Creative Passing
Expand/Nurture
Entry Playmaking
Neutral Zone Tracking + Forechecking
Off-Wall Handling/Passing
Defense to Offense Transition
Address/Improve
Skating from Standstill
Edgework/Stability in Backskating and within Puck Protection
Small Pass Playbuilding
Back Wall Puck Protection
Ignore/Accept
50/50 Wall Battle Winning
Faceoff Winning
The Bergeron Dilemma and the Second Wave Center
The more I dug into the tape the more I realized Kent Johnson really does have Center characteristics or, at least, flashes the skills that support Center play.
He moves on top of checks into the neutral zone, supports his defensemen in linking defense to offense, supports their puck moving in the defensive zone on breakouts, takes the middle lane in transition, passes wide and offers quick puck support to pressured puck carriers, creates transition offense through delays and finds the second wave of attack, utilizes middle lane ice geography for off-wall passes and shooting opportunities, occupies the net-front to enhance distant shooting value.
Perhaps those aren’t all of the responsiblities of the center-ice position but it certainly covers a good host of them. What’s interesting, from this perspective, is that he does so much of it from the wing position.
Here is where I’d like to introduce the role that I’m calling the Second Wave Center. I chose this name for two purposes. First, it’s a new way of thinking about contributing to the duties of a centerman. If traditional play is the first wave of thinking, this should be the second wave.
If I may, I’d like to hearken back to Belfry’s Bergeron Dilemma.
The purpose in mentioning him is he is the best of this era to do it. He has scored 20 goals or more in each of the last 10 seasons. However, 2018-19 is his only season over a point a game, and that was the only season he flirted with registerting and 80-plus point season. If he is in the middle connective position most often and many plays have to go through him, because he’s so easy to play with and is always in the righ tposition to give you an out, whey then is he not more offensively prolific?
Somewhere along teh way, he’s making choices that affect his ability to consistenly generate offense to hold the duality of the position [link between defense and offense] or shift more to a defensive posiiton. We also know, it is challenging to generate consistent offense without having an elite rush offense. Bergeron’s foot speed may hold him back from getting in the rush as F1 and F2 as often as you need to generate.
Perhaps, this is a factor, as his best rush threats would be transition opportunities, as the late guy, or in re-entry.
Now, we have to be careful in proceeding from this position. Kent Johnson is not Patrice Bergeron. I still think the idea of leveraging his individual capital to create breakouts perhaps precludes him from being able to create high point totals.
This fits, in part, with his RAPM chart relative to other high-producing wings who have limited impact on shots and xGA.
But lets return to insight that Belfry gleaned from Martin Nečas.
Now we have a winger who is very effective in the middle of the ice, who now is sharing the position with the center. Aside from the obvious comfort of having the center position “covered,” my mind goes to where the advantages might be. Let’s go back to Bergeron. In order for Bergeron to play the position as responsibly as he does, he doesn’t rotate out of position very often. When he does, the percentages have to be stacked in his favor and for it to make tactical sense, otherwise he holds his position. Now if Nečas wants to play the middle of the ice, and is constantly rotating in and out, and when he does play the middle of the ice, he is effective, what can that do for Trocheck offensively? If the position is truly shared by two capable centermen, now they can rotate out of the middle more comfortably, but also more strategically. Can both guys drive the effectiveness of the center position through their strategic rotations in out out? I see nothing but opportunity with something like this.
If Bergeron is in the right place all the time, but has to often make conservative decisions offensively to hold the integrity of the position on the “next play,” and MacKinnon’s superhuman characteristics make the way he plays the position unreasonable for others, then maybe Nečas and Carolina have cracked the code and offered insight into another way to play center.
It’s a wall of text, but it’s all pure insight and understanding.
From this perspective, perhaps Kent Johnson’s style is also that next way to play center.
I believe this new style of center, in terms of generating breakouts from the half wall, also represents a tactical “second wave”. The ideal breakout involves a defenseman beating the forecheck with a pass to the center in the middle of the ice with speed and options.
The second best option involves making an easy pass to a wing up the boards who can then bump that puck to the center. It’s the same effect, and may afford the center more time to build speed without the puck. If they get the puck, the wing now comes through the neutral zone as a second layer or “late guy.”
If the center doesn’t get the puck, now the half-wall wing, if appropriately skilled, takes the center lane in transition. The team is now no longer in attack mode, the defense having thwarted the highest danger rush offense, and instead is in possess mode.
Now the “Second Wave” Center isn’t preoccupied with attack as fast as possible but instead moving safely and securely into the zone. Instead of smashing defensive structure with pace they navigate a set defense with deft movement and small area play.
Furthermore, because they are the “late guy” and as such the forward furthest back, they occupy an inherently defensive position. One that serves as a protective and insulating layer. It stands to reason that defensive tracking and capacity to turn defense to offense would be highly desirable attributes.
Then, if a Second Wave Center can be one of the first back, thereby freeing defensemen to attack aggressively, and use this exact play connecting and possessional assurance to diffuse opposition rush offense. If done well, they can recover pucks in the neutral zone and initiate Neutral Zone Re-Entry offense.
In effect, they can get back early to try to support defensemen in retrievals to avoid extended defensive zone sequences with puck moving.
If that doesn’t work, and these players have a deficiency in in-zone defensive triangle or back wall battle winning performances, they can rotate off for a player that doesn’t necessarily have those weaknesses.
In my opinion, and from the limited perspective of the film clips I accumulated through this past season, Kent Johnson is a perfect candidate for exactly this type of player.
He has capacity to influence shot suppression with some of his point defense strategies and certainly has the neutral zone tracking, anticipation and quick-thinking mental map to turn loose pucks into recoveries for his defenseman.
Furthermore, his mindset and skillset both flash a potential high ceiling for small area possession play building and he’s already shown the capacity to thrive as a second layer attacker and neutral zone re-entry driver.
If the team doesn’t exit the zone cleanly or can’t recover possesion while in the defensive zone, he can rotate with more physically dominant players like Boone Jenner, Cole Sillinger, Adam Fantilli or, perhaps eventually, Cayden Lindstrom.
Development Crossroads
At this point, I believe there’s plenty of room for optimism for Kent Johnson. Though this film review was always going to be fairly positive as a result of the clips being accumulated as notable areas of success throughout the season, there are still a couple of pain points for Kent Johnson’s development.
In his first season, Kent Johnson was a confident rush handler who sought to create breakdowns by leveraging his excellent deception and manipulation. He high good volume of entries and especially so at generating entries with control.
This last season he was more conservative and spent significantly more time building plays from the back-end and supporting possession.
So the question remains, is Kent Johnson a Second-Wave Center whose ceiling is within the supportive and play building skillset? Who we want acting like a safety-net and linking defense to offense?
Or is his ceiling a highly creative playmaking winger who should be allowed to use his anticipation to leave the zone, stretch the ice and create offense like other superstars in Patrick Kane, Nikita Kucherov, William Nylander etc.
If we believe he should chase that direction we’ll need him to develop the confidence in attacking and breaking down defenses, in taking risks at the blueline to create odd-man situations and access high value rush offense. Deploying those skills at 5v5 may be necessary for him to become a high-value powerplay carrier.
In the end, I don’t believe these two skill sets are necessarily diametrically opposed. The focus, at least for this past season, appeared to be playing the style of hockey that wins in the playoffs. The critical question for the Blue Jackets’ development staff, or in Kent Johnson’s team, is whether a team can go from a basement dweller to a playoff winner without letting young players play free attacking hockey.
Then again, maybe that forward more risky 1v1 attacking should come from the center-ice position with aggressive athletes like Adam Fantilli and Cayden Lindstrom. If that’s the case, Kent Johnson’s supportive, exit focused habits and second wave motion habits are the correct skillset to lean into for future development.
Optimizing Kent Johnson
Linemates
As with Adam Fantilli, the Blue Jackets also have responsibility to put Kent Johnson in positions to succeed.
If he is going to be a productive leader of the team going forward, he’ll have to be a creative presence on the powerplay. If he’s going to be a more supportive play-linking type player, he should be rewarded with shared ice with skilled players.
For the most part, a steady position, with solid icetime, in which he can learn and develop chemistry is likely the most optimal position there. In any case, he’ll have to be in a position where mistakes are viewed as opportunities for improvement and not reasons to strip away icetime.
At 5v5, the critical elements of Kent Johnson’s game that must be nurtured are his middle focused playmaking and support movement and his capacity to use small passes to build dangerous possession.
If he continues to play with linemates that struggle to get the puck back to him after he gives up the puck he’s going to have trouble learning how to break down defenses in this manner.
From that perspective, Dmitri Voronkov has to be the best potential linemate for Kent Johnson. Voronkov was one of the few players on the team that ever looked to Johnson for return passes and his recognition of space fit very well with Kent Johnson’s spatial manipulation and support game.
Voronkov has no problem ceding the middle of the ice and allowing Kent Johnson to work from there and he’s also plenty capable occupying a more stationary netfront and creating open room for Kent Johnson’s motion oriented in-zone gameplay.
Both look to build passing plays in off-wall scenarios and that they both share the puck could promote those long term habits when they are eventually separated.
I also believe Kent Johnson to be an excellent running mate for Adam Fantilli. Ideally, Fantilli represents the aggressive and pacey complement to Kent Johnson’s more supportive game. Fantilli will have to work to find Kent Johnson for return passses but there’s no reason that their respective skillsets and gameviews wouldn’t work with eachother.
There’s potential for them to step on eachother’s toes as middle carriers, and Kent Johnson isn’t the player to utilize for Fantilli’s extra-pacey neutral zone area passes, but there’s enough theoretical fit that you’d love to give your future core time to build some long-term chemistry.
If not all combined together in an interesting offense oriented second-line, I think Kent Johnson could work as a play connector for Boone Jenner and Yegor Chinakhov or even as the third wheel with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. If Gavin Brindley makes the team, there’s no reason his pace, right-handed interior shooting and defensive intensity wouldn’t also serve as an excellent complement for Kent Johnson.
There’s plenty of flexibility with the roster as it currently stands.
Playstyle
I’ve already detailed plenty of the systemic changes that the Blue Jackets could make to bring the most out of Kent Johnson’s game, namely Neutral Zone Re-entry and a focus on a possessional neutral zone focus rather than a pace neutral zone focus.
If he continues to improve his high-ice neutral zone F3 forechecking, he would certainly help the Blue Jackets adopt a more aggressive neutral zone posture.
Perhaps then, his slippery movement through the center lane, and spatial zone entry techniques, would make up for his lack of raw driving pace and enable him to be a highly effective re-entry rush creator.