Penguins waive Jack Johnson, extend qualifying offer to Matt Murray, other restricted free agents

Jack Johnson’s time in Pittsburgh has come to an end.

On Monday, the Penguins placed the veteran defenseman on unconditional waivers for the purposes of buying out the final three years of a five-year contract he signed in 2018.

The man who extended and ultimately ended that contract wishes it didn’t happen that way.

But with the NHL’s salary cap remaining flat for the 2020-21 season due to league revenues being crippled by the coronavirus pandemic, Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford used what he referred to as a “last resort” and cut Johnson loose.

“When we signed Jack, we thought the cap was still going up,” Rutherford said by phone. “With (the coronavirus pandemic), the cap now is flat for the next few years.”

Rutherford said the decision to waive Johnson was made over the weekend. In reality, the acquisition of left-handed defenseman Mike Matheson in a trade with the Florida Panthers on Sept. 24 signaled Johnson’s time in Pittsburgh could be coming to a premature end.

“With the addition of Matheson kind of closing up the left side, (Johnson) became the odd guy out,” Rutherford said.

Buyouts are exceeding rare for the Penguins. This will be the first such transaction for the franchise since Rutherford took over as general manager in 2014. Their last buyout is believed to have been of forward John LeClair in December of 2006.

Johnson never seemed to fit in with the Penguins during his oft-scrutinized tenure with the team. While he was certainly a popular individual among his teammates, he seemed to be an odd component to a team that attempted to utilize speed as a brand as much as it did a tactic.

Never blessed with skating ability which would confuse him with Johann Olav Koss, Johnson, 33, did not appear to get any quicker with age.

Injuries to teammates forced Johnson, who had a salary cap hit of $3.25 million, to play on the first and second pairs throughout his two seasons with the Penguins. In 2018-19, he appeared in all 82 games and recorded 13 points and routinely recorded ugly possession analytics.

Thing stabilized a little bit for Johnson in 2019-20 as he played in 67 of a possible 69 regular season games before the season was halted. When play resumed in August for the NHL’s postseason, Johnson manned the third pairing with Justin Schultz.

During the fifth-seeded Penguins’ ugly 3-1 loss in a best-of-five qualifying round series to the 12th-seeded Montreal Canadiens, Johnson and Schultz became a focal point of the team’s struggles, particularly after they were on the ice for two of the Canadiens’ goals in a 3-2 overtime loss in Game 1.

Following the game, coach Mike Sullivan offered a passionate endorsement of the duo.

“We have a lot of confidence in that pair (of Johnson and Schultz),” Sullivan said. “They’re good players.”

A little more than two months later, Johnson has been waived while Schultz is expected to depart as a pending unrestricted free agent.

There will be considerable long-lasting ramifications for buying out Johnson. As per the terms of the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement with the NHLPA, the Penguins will retain a salary cap hit for his contract over the next six seasons. According to Cap Friendly, that total will fluctuate between $1,166,667 in 2020-21 to $916,667 in 2025-26.

Between Johnson’s buyout and the $2.05 million of salary retained from a Sept. 12 trade of forward Nick Bjugstad to the Minnesota Wild, the Penguins will have $3,216,667 of salary cap space devoted to players not on the roster for the 2020-21 season.

Those moves, however, will afford them $4,718,158 of salary cap space with the NHL’s free agent signing period opening Friday.

Additionally, the team extended qualifying offers to pending restricted free agents forwards Pontus Aberg, Anthony Angello, Sam Lafferty, Sam Miletic and goaltender Matt Murray but did not extend offers to forwards Graham Knott, Dominik Simon and defenseman John Nyberg and will allow them to become unrestricted free agents.

The potential for Simon to return to the Penguins exists. The decision to not retain his signing rights as a restricted free agent was strictly an economic decision.

“We want to control as much as we can, what our cap situation is going to be, that we’re going to be cap compliant,” Rutherford said. “If we enter into an arbitration case with somebody like Dominik, that could tilt it over the cap.”

A fifth-round pick in 2015, Simon, 26, just completed a two-year contract with a salary cap hit of $750,000. Over the past five seasons, Simon been used in a variety of roles, including as an occasional linemate to franchise center Sidney Crosby. In 64 games during the 2019-20 campaign, Simon had 22 points (seven goals, 15 assists).

Simon, a native of the Czech Republic, had his 2019-20 season cut short Feb. 29 when he suffered a left shoulder injury. He then underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum April 29. Rutherford indicated Simon’s recovery is progressing as scheduled.

The decision to extend a qualifying offer to Aberg was a procedural transaction to retain his NHL signing rights. Aberg, 27, was acquired on Aug. 25 as part of a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs that also brought forward Kasperi Kapanen to Pittsburgh. He appeared in only five NHL games last season and recorded one assist. Aberg was one of the top scorers for the Toronto Marlies of the AHL in 2019-20, scoring 44 points (20 goals, 24 assists) in 55 games.

A native of Sweden, Aberg is playing for the Chelyabinsk Traktor in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). That league is well over a month into its 2020-21 season, and in 11 games, Aberg has five points (two goals, three assists).

Rutherford expects him to remain in Russia when (and if) the NHL’s 2020-21 season begins.

“That’s a formality to keep his rights,” Rutherford said. “But we could see him here at some point depending on our team situations and what he wants to do. But it’s not for the start of (2020-21).

Murray, the team’s starting goaltender for much of the past five seasons, just completed a three-year contract with a salary cap hit of $3.75 million. With the Penguins re-signing All-Star goaltender Tristan Jarry to a three-year contract on Saturday, Rutherford has been speaking with other teams about potentially trading Murray.

After helping the Penguins win the Stanley Cup in 2016 and ‘17, Murray, 26, has not enjoyed the same success in the subsequent three seasons. In 2019-20, Murray — who largely platooned with Jarry — appeared in 38 games and had a 20-11-5 record along with a 2.87 goals against average, an .899 save percentage and one shutout.

Lafferty and Angello made their NHL debuts in 2019-20.

A native of Hollidaysburg, Lafferty, 25, just completed a two-year contract with a salary cap hit of $767,500. In 50 games during the 2019-20 season, he scored 13 points.

Angello, 24, appeared in 10 NHL games in 2019-20 and scored one goal. Despite playing in only 48 American Hockey League Games, he was the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins’ leading goal scorer with 16 goals while recording 25 points overall.

A fifth-round draft pick in 2014, Angello just completed an entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $833, 750.

An undrafted free agent signing in 2017, Miletic, 23, just completed a three-year entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $710,000. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s lone selection to the AHL’s All-Star Classic event, Miletic appeared in 62 AHL games last season and scored 32 points (nine goals, 23 assists). He has yet to play in the NHL.

Knott and Nyberg spent the entire 2019-20 season in the minor leagues.

Acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks in a November trade, Knott, a former second-round pick in 2015, barely played with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, appearing in only 11 games and failing to record a point.

Most of his 2019-20 season was spent in the ECHL with the Wheeling Nailers. In 33 games with Wheeling, Knott, 23, scored 23 points (11 goals, 12 assists).

Nyberg was acquired in a trade with the Dallas Stars in January to bring a veteran presence to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s blue line, which was besieged by absences because of recalls and injuries. In 16 games with the AHL Penguins, he recorded four points.

A native of Sweden, Nyberg signed with Bryna IF of the Swedish Hockey League on June 10.

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