Prospect Info: 60th Overall, Albert Johansson, LD

[Henkka]

It's really phenomenal how he is developing.

Everything looked bad under Lalonde (and Boughner). He was scary young little kid, but so was Gustafsson and all those 3rd pair guys. That was bad coaching.

Now, it's a total new world and ballgame with McLellan and Trent Yawney. It looks like every guy is playing like god damn Nicklas Lidström did.

My god I love these days. Gonna surprise every day, when some kid is better than he was yesterday.

I don't know if anyone cares about advanced stats, Johansson is from McLellan-era 16 games:

Top2 in CF% (after Seider)
Best at GF%
Top3 at xGF% (after Edvinsson and Petry)

Imo, he could have best overall stats for last 16 games, if we combine these. Not gonna go that far, it does not do any favours for anyone, it's just the team internal rank.

 

[DoMakc]

The notion of "anchoring" a pairing is vague, so I'm not going to argue about that. But there's some historical revisionism here. Coffey, Murphy, and Schneider were all great in Detroit. (In my view, Coffey and Murphy were both better than Rafalski, and Schneider was about as good as Rafalski. But I'm not going to try to make that case. I'm just here to celebrate some great Wings from years past.)

Coffey played 3.375 seasons in Detroit, and he was a force the entire time: 239 points in 231 games, 50 points in 49 playoff games. He was probably the team's best player in 1995 (Norris, 4th in Hart voting). Bowman eventually traded him as part of the package for Shanahan. It's not like Bowman shipped him off for nothing.

Murphy never had a bad season in his career. His first three years in Detroit, he was 5th, 7th, and 18th in dman scoring. His play dropped off in his last year, but he was a good player even then. If you want to see how important he was to the Wings from 1997-2000, look at the TOI for those years.

Schneider had no problem hitting the net. His 21 goals in 2006 were more than Lidstrom's career high. He also had more points than Lidstrom in 2004.

Funny that you are talking about historical revisionism. Your post reeks scoresheet hindsight. Murphy never had a bad season? Tell that Leafs fans, he was literally run out of Toronto. Bur maybe Mickey Redmond is just too old and does not remember things properly, because he mentions this fact quite often. Schneider was never a good defender, mostly because of skating, there is no way he was better than Rafalski. Everybody was happy when Red Wings signed Rafalski and Schneider went to Ducks. But actually he never played that much with Lidström, especially after lockout, I'm not sure why he was brought up in the first place . Coffey was great offensive defenseman, but it is true that Bowman wanted to get rid of him, for the same reason Yzerman had to change his game completely - he wanted them to be able to defend. Before Toronto, Red Wings were an example of regular season champion that cannot win in playoffs. For how great Coffey was as a player, three teams won Stanley Cup immediately after they traded him away - which does not sound like he was that important to success of those teams. All three players were not Andreas Lilja, but they have something in common - great offensive defensemen with very questionable defensive skills, in very late stage of their career, they had a career renaissance with Lidstrom taking a lot of defensive burden from them. All of them very just complimentary players at that stage, and they were carried way more by Lidström than other way around. But again points is the only way to judge defensemen, i have no argument here...

 

[TheGelatinousCube]

Funny that you are talking about historical revisionism. Your post reeks scoresheet hindsight. Murphy never had a bad season? Tell that Leafs fans, he was literally run out of Toronto. Bur maybe Mickey Redmond is just too old and does not remember things properly, because he mentions this fact quite often. Schneider was never a good defender, mostly because of skating, there is no way he was better than Rafalski. Everybody was happy when Red Wings signed Rafalski and Schneider went to Ducks. But actually he never played that much with Lidström, especially after lockout, I'm not sure why he was brought up in the first place . Coffey was great offensive defenseman, but it is true that Bowman wanted to get rid of him, for the same reason Yzerman had to change his game completely - he wanted them to be able to defend. Before Toronto, Red Wings were an example of regular season champion that cannot win in playoffs. For how great Coffey was as a player, three teams won Stanley Cup immediately after they traded him away - which does not sound like he was that important to success of those teams. All three players were not Andreas Lilja, but they have something in common - great offensive defensemen with very questionable defensive skills, in very late stage of their career, they had a career renaissance with Lidstrom taking a lot of defensive burden from them. All of them very just complimentary players at that stage, and they were carried way more by Lidström than other way around. But again points is the only way to judge defensemen, i have no argument here...

I don't want to argue about things I didn't say or don't believe, so I'll say at the outset that I don't think Schneider was better than Rafalski, and I don't think anyone ever carried Lidstrom. Lidstrom is clearly the best dman ever to play for the Wings, and he had a much better career than Coffey or Murphy. I do think, however, that 1995 was the only season of Lidstrom's career when he was outperformed by another dman on his team, and I think Murphy was much more than a complementary piece.

Murphy was run out of Toronto, but he never had a bad season in his career. He also was not defensively questionable during his Detroit years. Bowman began to rely on him heavily as soon as he arrived. In 1998, Murphy was second on the team in TOI, both regular season and playoffs. In 1999 he was second in the regular season, third in the playoffs. In 2000, he was third in the regular season, second in the playoffs. I don't know if TOI is available for 1997, but Murphy was on the first pairing with Lidstrom in the final at least.

Schneider was a questionable defender, no doubt about it. He was offensively effective in his years in Detroit, and to say otherwise is inaccurate. He was Lidstrom's main partner in 2004, which was the basis for mentioning him.

Coffey was also a questionable defender, and it's true that Bowman was highly critical of him and eventually traded him. But this came after three full seasons and four playoff runs. Despite Coffey's defensive shortcomings, he was likely the Wings best player in 1995, when he led the team in points, offensive win shares, and defensive win shares. The Wings made it to one final and one conference final with Coffey. Did the Wings win in 1997 because they traded him or because they added Shanahan and Murphy? It's impossible to say, though Coffey did win the Stanley Cup four times in his career, in addition to having international success. It was certainly possible to win with him.

 

[RabidBadger]

If AlJo is here to stay and continues to improve, that to me is the biggest silver lining of this season (outside of the coaching change). It's another brick in place for the future and one less prospect you have to worry about panning out. ASP is looking like a sure bet. Any other defense prospect that hits would be icing on the cake.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

So…now is he gud? Or realgud?

I’m enjoying this string of solid games from him.

 

[KJoe88]

Yeah he sort of kind of made McDoofus look human.

 

[Preposterone]

The Canadian broadcast had a couple subtle compliments over the last two periods

 

[TheGelatinousCube]

My goodness. I nearly swooned when he made that play on McDave*. I love this guy.

*That's what his friends call him.

 

[Pavels Dog]

So…now is he gud? Or realgud?

I’m enjoying this string of solid games from him.

Defensive plays like these are just as beautiful as a top corner snipe to me.

Great footwork and stick positioning from Albert.

 

[GarlicbreadTB]

Wonder what his next contract will look like if he continues like this?

 

[Henkka]

Wonder what his next contract will look like if he continues like this?

Pretty much it will be only peanuts.

He is projecting to 61 career games, 2+8=10 points at the moment.

Average ice-time is still only 15:12, when Lalonde kept him at so small role.

It could maybe raise on last 31 games to 17-18min average, if he logs +20min from now on.

 

[Ricelund]

It's been clear the organization's high on this guy for a few years now and we're starting to see why. Very fun to see!

 

[Winger98]

Pretty much it will be only peanuts.

He is projecting to 61 career games, 2+8=10 points at the moment.

Average ice-time is still only 15:12, when Lalonde kept him at so small role.

It could maybe raise on last 31 games to 17-18min average, if he logs +20min from now on.

Even if he's averaging 20 minutes the cost will be very manageable if he's not putting up a bunch of points. And if he keeps playing well I have to believe Yzerman will be looking at locking him for good number of years this summer, something similar to the Samuelsson contract in Buffalo, maybe a little shorter. Albert is putting us in such a good position.

 

[RED WINGS STOMP]

Been totally impressed with his body positioning and stick work along the boards in his own zone. Much more physical than advertised.

You win with this kind of defender in your group.

 

[norrisnick]

Wonder what his next contract will look like if he continues like this?

I could see 2yr/$5M (total). $2M for yr1 and $3M for yr2. He'd still be RFA after with a more favorable (for the player) QO number. For a guy at league minimum for his NA stint so far, that's a huge chunk of change. If his current play is his floor moving forward, I could easily see him getting a long term $4-5M/yr deal after the bridge. He's the perfect 2nd pairing complementary player, especially since he can play either side.

 

[sepster]

So…now is he gud? Or realgud?

I’m enjoying this string of solid games from him.

What I'm most impressed about with this play is that after he was able to force the turnover, he didn't panic and look for a quick clear, but rather he skated the puck up and made a controlled breakout.

 

[Tetsuo]

Ideally we sign him for some term at a reasonable cap hit, probably around 4mil a year. That might look high but with the way the cap is going percentage wise that could be an absolute steal in a few years when the window really opens. Otherwise you sign him to a small bridge contract and then he gets a bigger payday at the end of the it (provided he keeps up this level of play at least).

Having a guy with this kind of defensive poise in the bottom 4 for a long time is a huge, huge boon for us going forward.

 

[19 for president]

Really great play vs some great players in McDavid/ Drai. Those are big fast guys that turn a lot of players inside out.

This is the Aljo I was hoping for after hearing about his steady presence for years in GR. A quiet minute muncher. With that said I've actually been very impressed with his ability to get pucks on net and jump into the play too. He and Ed read each other really well and you don't often see them get caught when one of them jumps into the play.

 

[RabidBadger]

Been totally impressed with his body positioning and stick work along the boards in his own zone. Much more physical than advertised.

You win with this kind of defender in your group.

Yeah, I was surprised to see how often he's involved cleaning the trash out of the crease for the goalie. He plays above his size.

 

[14ari13]

Johansson has been great, but it is more because of Edvidsson than Mclellan

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Johansson has been great, but it is more because of Edvidsson than Mclellan

It’s shortsighted to say that.

Edvinsson didn’t help AlJo make that defensive stop on McDavid, and AlJo has been making solid individual defensive plays for weeks. It definitely helps when you have a stud of a partner, but give credit where credit is due.

Also, coaching obviously is another big part. Lalonde was giving AlJo 12-13 minutes a night with Gustafsson who was a liability at that time. The schemes for retrievals and breakouts were flat out bad. He wanted everyone to just dump the puck wherever, whenever. Under TMac our defenseman that can skate are skating. The breakouts work. The strategies he implemented are working, and playing to the players’ strengths.

 

[14ari13]

It’s shortsighted to say that.

Edvinsson didn’t help AlJo make that defensive stop on McDavid, and AlJo has been making solid individual defensive plays for weeks. It definitely helps when you have a stud of a partner, but give credit where credit is due.

Also, coaching obviously is another big part. Lalonde was giving AlJo 12-13 minutes a night with Gustafsson who was a liability at that time. The schemes for retrievals and breakouts were flat out bad. He wanted everyone to just dump the puck wherever, whenever. Under TMac our defenseman that can skate are skating. The breakouts work. The strategies he implemented are working, and playing to the players’ strengths.

How can I give him more credit when I said he had been great? Obviously everyone has improved a lot under Mclellan. The record shows for itself. But to me it is obvious that Edvidsson has made our defence and team better. He has already established himself as one of the best on this team.