When he played in the NHL, Ryan Johnson was all about commitment. He was willing to throw his body in front of some of the hardest shots in the league if it meant giving his team an incrementally better chance to win.
But before producing bruises on his legs, Johnson was producing points in the AHL. In his second professional season, Johnson racked up 67 points in 64 games for the Beast of New Haven, a now-defunct AHL team. Before making the jump to the NHL, he had to come to grips with the fact that he wasn’t going to be a point-producing top-six forward, but a defensive centre, making the necessary adjustments to his game, his preparation, and his training.
For the last four years, Johnson has been helping Canucks prospects make similar adjustments as they prepare to make the jump to the NHL. Now he’s added one more title to his role as Director of Player Development, as he was just named General Manager of the Utica Comets.
“I was our presence in Utica for the last couple years,” says Johnson. “Basically all this is doing is putting the title to it, making sure the understanding is that I’m the conduit between Utica and Vancouver.”
Much of Johnson’s day-to-day work will remain unchanged, as he focuses on developing the next crop of Canucks prospects. He understands that fans are eager to see several of the young players in the system make the jump to the NHL, but Johnson made an argument for a more methodical approach.
“We as an organization,” he says, “have no interest in a guy coming up and playing a game just to get a game, get humbled, and then go back down and try to find his confidence again. Whether it’s Jordan [Subban], whether it’s Jake Virtanen, it’s about getting them ready so that when they make that step, it’s a one-way flight to Vancouver and they’re not going back.”
For Johnson, what separates the players that can successfully make the jump to the NHL can be summed up in one word: professionalism.
“We live in a world where it’s immediate gratification all the time,” he says, “and the process of getting to the NHL and staying there for a long time, it’s not an overnight thing. You see the guys that understand firstly the professionalism that needs to happen on a day-to-day basis, making the right decisions on and off the ice; it’s not coincidence that those are the guys that end up getting there.”
“Bo Horvat,” he continues, “who was ready physically, mentally, who has it all together to step in and play right from day one? That just doesn’t happen.”
Horvat is certainly a rarity, but it has still been frustrating for Canucks fans to see prospects struggle in the AHL. Virtanen is an example, managing just 19 points in 65 games last season.
“I think the tough thing for people that maybe don’t see the games in the American League,” he says, “They maybe hear names or see some numbers and don’t understand necessarily how hard and how good of a league the American League is.”
And that goes for players too, says Johnson: “Players think, ‘I’ll go in, I’ll score a bunch of goals and I’ll be ready by Christmas,’ and then they’re humbled. There’s a lengthy process to get them ready to play in the National Hockey League.”
Johnson stressed how the early stretch of the AHL season, from October to Christmas, can be a shock to the system, particularly for first-year pros. Most high-end prospects go from being one of the best players, if not the best player, on the ice, to being just another player in the AHL. If ill-prepared for the transition, it can be a humbling experience.
“I say to these guys time and time again,” says Johnson, “You will not get away with what you’re doing now. Six months down the road you will realize it and it will hit you in the face like a truck, but you need to understand it now. If you’re going to try in the last year or two of your junior career to just cheat and get away with things and put up your points and think you’re just going to hit a switch and change it come next September, you’re going to be swimming.”
It’s gratifying, then, to see prospects buying in to the level of commitment Johnson sees as necessary to taking the next step. Brendan Gaunce and Evan McEneny both stand out to him for the steps they’ve taken as professionals.
“Evan is a great example of patience, of a guy who put his nose to the grindstone and got to work,” says Johnson. “A big decision that he made was to make a change in his body, which gave him a chance to move at that level and then his natural skills were able to take over.
“When you talk about the process, that guy is a perfect example of it.”
When Johnson says “a change in his body,” he means an all-encompassing change: training regimen, conditioning, diet, etc. Brendan Gaunce made a similar commitment to his fitness and conditioning that has allowed him to make big improvements on the ice.
“[Gaunce] was a first-round pick that had everything go his way and then got the American League and got humbled,” says Johnson. “But he said, ‘Show me the way and I’ll put in the work.’ He went from a very average to below-average condition to being right there with the Sedins [in conditioning] and gave himself a chance to be the best player he could.”
“He had some ups and downs with some injuries and stuff,” he adds, “but I know he’s doing everything to prepare himself with the recovery of his shoulder and I know he’s going to come back better than ever. There’s another guy that bought in and said, ‘If you guide me, I’ll do the work.’ And it’s paid off.”
Johnson feels like he’s taking on this new responsibility at an exciting time for the organization. You can hear in his voice the excitement for when training camp rolls around. With guys like Brock Boeser, Nikolay Goldobin, Anton Rodin, and Reid Boucher all competing on the wings, Johnson thinks the Canucks are on the right path.
“You know the organization is picking up steam when you’re creating competition and now we’ve done that,” he says. “The competition that we’re going to have in training camp this year for a few spots is exciting. Your organization instantly improves when you’re able to create that competition. We’ve done that via trade, via free agency, and via the draft.”
As for the players that don’t make the cut at training camp? Most of them will end up in Johnson’s hands in Utica to help them develop and prepare for the next opportunity.
“It’s about getting them ready,” he says, “not just to play a few games, but to hopefully have a lengthy career.”
