Longtime NHL defenseman Jack Johnson has retired from playing hockey and has joined the Vancouver Canucks organization as a professional scout.
Johnson, 38, played for 19 NHL seasons, including a two-year stint in Pittsburgh for the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.
The Penguins signed Jack Johnson to a five-year, $16.25 million contract during the 2018 offseason, eventually placing the veteran defenseman
on waivers and buying out the remaining three years of his deal in October 2020.
Johnson bounced around several NHL rosters post-buyout with stints in New York, Colorado, Chicago, and Columbus, where he spent a good chunk of his career before coming to Pittsburgh.
Over six years removed from his time in Pittsburgh, Johnson’s retirement and new gig in Vancouver is a reunion of sorts with Canucks President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford, who drafted Johnson in Carolina in 2005 and signed him in Pittsburgh when he was the Penguins’ general manager.
The Penguins are still paying a cap hit on Johnson’s 2020 buyout, which saw the remaining three years of the term of the deal spread across six years.
The cap hit, which counts for $916,667, will go away after this current season.
