Some admit they have been "hard" on Johnson...interesting.
Was it because Johnson's small but pretty good NHL body of work similar to Anton Khudobin's when he was acquired in 2011 was trumped by a few rough patches of individual and team play?
Perhaps the shiny new toy syndrome of wanting Niklas Svedberg up with the team even though playing 3 times since Oct. 3 would be a waste of his time (and precious cap space)?
Because sometimes in our zeal we tend to over analyze and make perfection the enemy of good enough?
Johnson had an inauspicious start vs. Montreal, true. In a preseason game, mind you. But he also blanked Detroit in his next start. My question all along has been- why spend so much time & energy on a backup making close to the league minimum when you have a stud in Tuukka Rask? Who was Martin Brodeur's backup in New Jersey when he was winning his string of Vezina Trophies in the late 90's/early 2000s? Anyone? Didn't really matter- the Devils did just fine because they needed a G who was "good enough" while Brodeur carried the team with his elite-caliber play, and fears of him getting "burned out" by the 70+ games of action each year proved unfounded. You obviously want a good backup in place to spell your No. 1 and win you games, but Brodeur is one case where if you have a thoroughbred between the pipes who's capable of handling the bulk of starts plus playoffs, backup is one area you can assume some risk with.
Here's hoping those who were so sure Johnson needed to go after a tiny sample size take the lesson to heart a little bit and lay off the panic button next time.
Johnson was brought in at a low cap hit as a low-risk/low-reward signing to off-set the cap situation and to allow Svedberg to develop a little more without twiddling his thumbs and spending much of his time opening the door to the bench for his Boston teammates. For those unaware- Khudobin was not an option for Boston; he gave Carolina an opportunity discount he wasn't willing to extend the Bruins, so there is irony that when such an opportunity presents itself with Cam Ward injured (again), so too, is AK (just as he was when Rask went down late in 2011-12 & Marty Turco was signed) and at last report, Ward's return timeline is ahead of Khudobin's. Teams want and need their backups to be healthy and available when they need them. Tough luck for AK, I suppose.
As for Svedberg in Boston sure, there is something to be said about the benefits he would get practicing with the team, but the club saved $400k and were in a position to bring him up if Johnson proved woefully inadequate for the task. In the meantime, he's playing a lot more in Providence and providing the B's with an option if they need him or decide to make a change later on.
Now, if anything God forbid were to happen to Rask, that's a potential game-changer in terms of how the Bruins would use Svedberg going forward. But for now, the arrangement works just fine. Svedberg's time will come, but for now, he's where he needs to be and nothing I've seen from Johnson leads me to believe he's ill-suited for the job and rare playing time that goes with backing up an NHL workhorse and superstar.
