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Erik Johnson extension a breath of fresh air for the Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche signed Erik Johnson, the longest-tenured defenseman on the team, to a seven-year, $42 million contract extension that kicks in next year. That will make Johnson the highest-paid player on the Avalanche next season, tied with Matt Duchene, and will make him 11th-highest cap hit among defensemen across the league.
"Erik is a big part of the core of this team," Colorado Avalanche Executive Vice President and GM Joe Sakic said in a press release. "We felt it was very important for our franchise to secure his rights for the long term as he enters his prime years of his career."
Yeah, you bet it was important.
Over the past two offseasons, the Avalanche have had two players flee The Centennial State, chasing after the money.
Paul Statsny, who made $6.6 million in the final year of his contract with the Avalanche at age of 28, wanted far more money than the Avalanche could part with during the 2014 offseason. He found that pay raise with the St. Louis Blues, earning a four-year deal that carried a $7 million average annual value. The Avalanche lost a forward capable of chipping in 50 to 60 points, right in the prime of his career.
This year, the Avalanche had no choice but to part with Ryan O'Reilly. O'Reilly was constantly bickering about a pay raise that the Avalanche simply couldn't meet. After shipping him and Jamie McGinn to the Buffalo Sabres for defenseman Nikita Zadorov, forwards Mikhail Grigorenko and J.T. Compher and the 31st-overall pick in the 2015 draft. O'Reilly got the extension he wanted, signing a seven-year, $52.5 million deal shortly after the trade. And again, the Avalanche lost a 24-year-old forward capable of scoring 55 or more points per season.
Look, the Avalanche were at a cross road with both of these players. Statsny earned a slight pay raise over his previous contract with the Avalanche, but with so many young, talented forwards, Statsny was on the outside looking in. And while O'Reilly may have seemed unreasonable with the Avalanche when it came to contract negotiations, O'Reilly knew his worth. O'Reilly signed a two-year, $10 million offer sheet when he was just 22-years-old with the Calgary Flames in 2013. It was matched by the Avalanche, but if he was already worth $5 million a year at the age of 22, what would he be worth in the prime of his career? O'Reilly knew the answer to that question, and he knew he could find that elsewhere. Can you blame him?
But Sakic and the Avalanche could not let that happen a third time, and they managed to lock up their top defenseman on a deal that works for both sides.
Johnson set a career high in goals (12) last season, which co-led Avalanche defensemen, despite playing in just 47 games after missing time with a knee injury. He was the Avalanche's ice time per game leader, averaging nearly three minutes more than the second-highest TOI leader (Tyson Barrie).
Johnson is far and away the best defenseman on the team. Take a look at this graph, provided by War On Ice. On the x-axis, it shows us which defensemen were utilized primarily in the offensive zone and the defensive zone to start their shifts (the more to the left means they were utilized in the defensive zone, the more on the right means they were utilized more offensively), the y-axis shows us how difficult their competition generally was (the higher the circle, the more difficult the competition) and the color shows us how many offensive chances the player was able to generate relative to his team mates (the darker the blue, the more offensive chances the player generated, the darker the red, the more offensive chances the player had generated against him). This graph accounts for even strength five on five time.
We can immediately see that Johnson was utilized against the against opponents top competition, and had more difficult assignments than any other Avalanche defenseman. He also started in the defensive zone more than anyone else, yet he led Avalanche defensemen in Corsi-relative percentage. That means that, despite starting off primarily in the defensive zone against opponents top lines, Johnson was still able to generate more scoring chances for than against in relation to his team mates.
He's just 27-years-old (but the deal won't start until he's 28, meaning it runs until he's 35). It's a deal that works well for both sides. The Avalanche get a top-pairing defenseman for a relatively cheap contract in comparison to the rest of the league through his primary years, but aren't locked up for too many years when he should start declining (do you want to pay a 36-year-old or older $6 million a year if he's not the same player he once was?). Johnson gets an appropriate amount of money and a sense of long-term security.
But, most importantly, it shows that a great player like Johnson wants to stay in Colorado. And that should be a good feeling for the Avalanche organization.
