I still vividly remember reading the Erik Johnson trade headline on TSN.ca in 2011. A younger version of myself had stayed up until 4 am playing video games, and for some reason my exhausted brain thought the Avalanche had acquired goaltender Brent Johnson (yeah, it was that long ago).
After checking the Dater blog on the Denver Post website for details, I was shocked and excited. Johnson was pretty rough when he first got to Colorado though, but over the next couple seasons his defensive game really developed. He was never the star he was projected to be when being drafted 1st overall, but he was a legitimate top pairing defensive defenseman for a long time.
And that was a really big deal on this team. After Rob Blake left, the Avs went through a stretch of trying to piecemeal their defense together with mid-pairing guys. That didn't change much after EJ joined the club, either. During his prime years, Johnson was the headliner of a medicore-to-poor defensive core, on a mediocre-to-poor Colorado team (depending on the year).
I thought EJ took a step back in 2019, likely a result of so many significant injuries over the years. Of course, the cruel irony was that the organization had finally turned the corner. The wheels completely came off by 2021, at which point Johnson was an afterthought on the defense. I was even calling for him to be bought out after he missed all but 4 games that season.
Fortunately they didn't, because while he was just a depth piece in the 2022 regular season, he stepped up big time in the playoffs. He was rock solid as Bowen Byram's partner, forced into a top-4 role after Sam Girard went down to injury. I'm so glad Johnson got his Cup with the Avalanche, something that would've been inconceivable only five years earlier. He went to hell and back with this franchise, which was a mismanaged joke of an organization for large chunks of his tenure.
Good luck to EJ in Buffalo!
