Erik Johnson
For the last selection, Erik Johnson has the dubious result of being a pick that was foolish. Clearly, in a vacuum, that would be harsh.
Johnson has proven to be a decent NHL player over the course of his career. In 12 seasons in the NHL he’s got 80 goals, over 300 points and is closing in on 800 games played.
Those are not numbers to just brush aside and scoff at. The problem for Johnson is who could/should have been taken instead and also how things went in St. Louis. We’ll start with the latter.
The Blues drafted Johnson in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. While real puck heads followed this stuff all the time, 2005 and 2006 were the first real times when Blues fans became aware of who was being drafted.
Mostly that was because the team was bad enough to get high picks. Still, St. Louis took T.J. Oshie in 2005 and got Johnson and Patrik Berglund in 2006.
There was reason to start looking up. St. Louis had some good young kids, just waiting to get into the NHL.
Despite finishing with just 21 wins, the Blues did not bring Johnson to the league immediately. Whether that was his decision to play a year at Minnesota or the team thinking a year of college would be good is anyone’s guess.
However, Blues fans would have to wait even longer to see him in action as much as they thought. Johnson averaged around 18 minutes in his rookie season and only scored five goals and 33 points.
Those were not terrible numbers, but it was not what fans wanted from a first-overall pick. Then, the bottom fell out.
Johnson missed the entire 2008-09 season due to a knee injury. While there are varying accounts, it basically boiled down to him getting injured by a golf cart during the offseason. Some think they had too much to drink and he slipped out, others say he got ran into. Regardless, it was a non-playing injury that took him out of action.
The Blues had just brought Alex Pietrangelo into the fold at the start of the season, so many were excited to see these two cornerstone players on the blue line. Instead, we got eight games for Petro and none for Johnson. It was only a miracle run at the end of that season that saw them make the playoffs.
Johnson showed signs of life the following year. He had 10 goals and 39 points, but was struggling in 2010-11 and the Blues traded him to Colorado.
The trade, of course, was best for both teams. St. Louis got parts of seven seasons with Kevin Shattenkirk and probably got the best out of Chris Stewart too. Johnson has found his way to being a solid top-four, often top-two defender in Colorado as well.
However, the problem was not just numbers. The real reason this was a foolish pick is because the Blues could have had another franchise player in Jonathan Toews.
Take away all the years of hatred toward him due to who he’s played for and what he’s accomplished for that team. Towes is not a Sidney Crosby or Wayne Gretzky. However, I would put him in a similar category as Mark Messier.
They both could score when needed. They both led by example and that was more what the Blues would have needed at that time.
You cannot simply say the Blues win those Cups instead of Chicago if they had Toews. St. Louis would have needed players around Toews like Chicago had.
However, in hindsight, there is not a Blues fan among us that can honestly say they would not have made the swap and taken Toews instead of Johnson.
St. Louis could have had Jordan Staal, Phil Kessel, Nicklas Backstrom or even Claude Giroux. Each one of those had some baggage or runins with fans/media/managment along the way, so you could fall back on the idea the Blues needed a defender and still took Johnson.
Given the combination of skill and leadership and his ability to keep his mouth shut, for the most part, you can’t make that argument with Johnson over Toews. Johnson has proven to be a capable player, but Toews would have been a number one pick.