Hivemind
We're Touched
There's something to be said about having your high skill, high minutes players avoid the PK so they can be used in other situations. The Flyers board is generally happy about the Boyd Gordon signing because it means Claude Giroux should have to kill fewer penalties. There's a couple of them using the analogy of having Giroux PK is like having a Ferrari tow your trailer around town. Let other players handle the PK duty and manage your stars' minutes so they can be used in other more impactful situations.
That being said, that logic applies well to Backstrom (and Ovechkin), but Johansson doesn't have so much offensive duty he couldn't handle a handful of PK shifts per game. He doesn't need to be a 2 minute a game PK specialist like Mike Richards/Brooks Laich/Jay Beagle. Adding in ~40-70 seconds of PK time to MoJo's platter shouldn't really impact his availability for regular or powerplay shifts. Minimally they need to fill Chimera's ~60 seconds of PK time (Eller should slot in for Richards' and Winnik for Laich's), and the only need body they brought into the mix is Brett Connolly (who hasn't had an NHL-level PK role before).
That being said, that logic applies well to Backstrom (and Ovechkin), but Johansson doesn't have so much offensive duty he couldn't handle a handful of PK shifts per game. He doesn't need to be a 2 minute a game PK specialist like Mike Richards/Brooks Laich/Jay Beagle. Adding in ~40-70 seconds of PK time to MoJo's platter shouldn't really impact his availability for regular or powerplay shifts. Minimally they need to fill Chimera's ~60 seconds of PK time (Eller should slot in for Richards' and Winnik for Laich's), and the only need body they brought into the mix is Brett Connolly (who hasn't had an NHL-level PK role before).