Quoting: ClockReads2113
Ugh how many times do I have to have this conversation. Johnson is horribly bad, this is why they are trying to trade him. If all it took to trade Johnson was depth defensemen and 3rd don't you think it would have happened by now? You aren't moving Johnson without a 1st or Hallander attached.
Okay, "Johnson is horribly bad." Assuming that's true (which is in dispute because he seems to have played reasonably well for the Pens the first few games of the season), then Sullivan can put him in the press box -- for the entire season, if necessary.
Now if you want to argue that his contract is heavily burdensome, which is why he should be moved, that argument fails, too. JJ can be bought out next year for a total cap hit of $2MM, including the player (Riikola, for $833,333) to replace him. That saves Pittsburgh $1.25MM off the cap at no cost to Pittsburgh. Why should the Pens pay a high price to escape that result? To put it another way, why should Pittsburgh expend a first-round draft pick to save $1,166,667 (Johnson's buy-out cap hit for two years)?
The only reason people like me were suggesting in the off-season that Pittsburgh would have to expend a significant asset to unload Johnson and his contract was their cap problem before the season started. Once Rust was injured, and could be placed on LTIR, that premise evaporated. Now there is absolutely no economic need to move Johnson at all. In short, his contract is not the millstone around Rutherford's neck that Loui Eriksson's is around Jim Benning's.