The Penguins are better but not by Much
Jack Johnson is no longer a Pittsburgh Penguin. Mission accomplished, pop the champagne. No really, Johnson no longer being a Penguin automatically makes this team better. If you're reading this you probably are already aware of how much of a black hole he was to this team. Ok so the Penguins, who lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the play-in-round of the 2020 Covid Stanley Cup Playoffs are "better". How much better, I'm really not sure. Let's start with addition via subtraction. We already know Johnson is gone but so his "almost as bad" defensive partner Justin Schultz. Schultz was good in 2016 and 2017 in the back-to-back Stanley Cup runs, but recently he turned back into a pumpkin. Schultz is a replacement-level defenseman who provided less offense than his skills and payrate would suggest, while being a defensive landmine. Everytime the Penguins trotted out Schultz and Johnson as a defensive tandem I started getting PTSD flashbacks. The Penguins re