Welcome to LWOS’ Summer Hockey Series, Best of the Rest. Plenty of sites do a version of a 30 greats in 30 days series, but this year we are doing something a little bit different. We want to look at the best player from each team who is not in the Hockey Hall Of Fame. In order to do this there are some rules. First the player must have been a significant part of this franchise (franchises include their time in a previous city… see Winnipeg/Atlanta) and must be retired for at least 3 years, making them Hall of Fame eligible. To see all the articles in the series, check out the homepage here.
Throughout the short history of the Nashville Predators, there has never been a true elite level player, or at least one that is eligible for this series (ask me once Shea Weber, Ryan Suter and Pekka Rinne have retired and you’d have a different answer). So it didn’t really matter who I picked, as no one would be truly Hall of Fame worthy, but I did my best with a player who contributed a fair bit to the Preds and had a good NHL career as a whole.
Nashville Predators – Greg Johnson
In his draft year, Greg Johnson was touted as a skilled, potential top-6 center, and while he never became a top scorer or anything in that vein, Johnson did have a relatively solid NHL career. In 785 NHL games, Johnson scored 145 goals and 224 assists, good for 369 points.
As far as retired National Hockey Leaguers go, no player has accomplished more in a Nashville Predators jersey than Greg Johnson. Johnson ranks 6th in games played with 502 (1st among inactive players), tied for 8th in goals with 93, tied for 9th in assists with 145, 8th in points with 238, 3rd in even strength goals with 73, and 1st in terms of shorthanded goals with 11.
Johnson was selected by the Predators at 23rd overall in the expansion draft of 1998, and went on to spend the final 7 years of his career with the Predators. Johnson spent the first 3 years of his tenure in Nashville as an alternate captain before being named as the 2nd team captain in franchise history. He served as captain for the final four years of his NHL career.
The Predators made the playoffs in only two of Johnson’s seven seasons with the club, both times resulting in a first round elimination. Throughout these playoff appearances, Johnson racked up 1 goal and 4 points in 11 games
Despite playing for numerous organizations throughout his career, Johnson’s strongest year points wise was 2000-01 with the Preds where he amassed 15 goals and 32 assists (48 points). Before his time with the Preds, Johnson had been part of the Chicago Blackhawks, Pittsburgh Penguins, Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers organizations (Johnson was drafted 33rd overall by the Flyers, though he never played a game for them). Johnson was traded from the Flyers to the Red Wings (for Jim Cummins and a 4th round draft pick), from the Red Wings to the Penguins (for Tomas Sandstrom, then the Wings went on to win the cup that season), then from Pittsburgh to Chicago (for Tuomas Gronman). Johnson then returned to the Red Wings in 2006 on a 1-year contract, but failed a pre-season EKG test, and decided to retire shortly after.
During a contest between the Nashville Predators and the Detroit Red Wings in the 2005-06 campaign, Johnson joined a select group of players to be credited with a goal before the opening faceoff. The original game had to be postponed due to Red Wings defender Jiri Fischer suffering a cardiac arrest while the score was 1-0, so Johnson was officially credited with the tally before the game had started (this same thing happened to Nathan Horton and the Columbus Blue Jackets late in the 2013-14 season).
In his junior days, Johnson accumulated 96 points in 47 games in 1988-89 for the Thunder Bay Flyers of the USHL. Johnson also played for four years at the University of North Dakota, with whom he led the WCHA in assists twice, and was placed on the conference first all-star team three years in a row (1991 through 1993). He was also placed on NCAA West first All-American team in 1991 and 1993, and on the second team in the year of 1992.
Johnson also had a decent international career, winning a silver medal representing Canada in Men’s Ice Hockey at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, and winning gold at the 1991 World Juniors held in Saskatchewan.
As you can see, Greg Johnson actually had a pretty good NHL career, but Hall of Fame worthy? I don’t think so, but it’s as close to it as I can find for the Predators, so lets take a moment to appreciate all that Greg Johnson has done for the Nashville Predators organization.
Fun Fact: Greg Johnson is the brother of former NHL’er and current player development consultant for the Vancouver Canucks Ryan Johnson.
Thank you for reading. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport and @LWOSworld – and “liking” our Facebook page.
Don’t forget to check out our friends at Sports Injury Alert for the latest in NHL injuries.
Main Photo:
