I mean this from the bottom of my heart: if you honestly think that Jack Johnson was the sole reason for every single problem on the Penguins last year, your opinion is worthless because you're showing yourself to not be at all rational. I don't know if it's laziness, scapegoating or just being a fanboy, but it's just absolutely absurd in every way.
When I read that, I basically interpret that to mean "the Penguins have a perfect team outside of Jack Johnson". For a team that got embarrassed in a 4-0 sweep in the playoffs last year, yeah that's just bull****. Regardless of what Johnson did, Kessel was a negative player analytically both offensively and defensively. He put up 2 ES goals from February 1st until the end of the season. He had a stretch of 29 games without an ES goal. That's the reality of what Kessel did last year, and the Penguins were 100% in the right to pull the plug on him when they did.