Kovacevic: So all of 2020 was worthwhile now that Johnson's gone?

Jack Johnson's contract was bad. I wrote as much minutes after it was signed, and I'd never be wrong.

Johnson's performance was bad. I wrote as much throughout his two years in Pittsburgh, and I'd rarely be wrong.

But when the Penguins, on this Monday morning, bought out the the final three years of that contact, the news was predictably embraced by the fan base as if it were some blissful combination of a cure for coronavirus, an end to racial injustice, the restoration of political bipartisanship, the dousing of California's wildfires, the toppling of the dictatorship in Belarus and the enforcement of existing jaywalking laws Downtown.

(Sorry for that last one, but sometimes you've just got to go over the top for dramatic effect.)

This is, of course, preposterous. But it's also well within the norm for a fan base that, maybe more than any other in our city, has created its occasional singular scapegoat.

Ever heard of Ron Stackhouse?

If not, congratulations because it means you're among the many younger fans the franchise is blessed to have. Stackhouse was before my time, too, but those who were regulars at the old Civic Arena four decades ago can attest that this poor soul, who'd have one of the most productive careers of any defenseman in Pittsburgh's hockey history -- including seasons of 71 and 60 points in 1974-76 -- was booed with most every touch of the puck in that tenure.

Why?

'Drop the gloves, Stackhouse!'

'Hit 'em with your purse, Stackhouse!'

Yeah, the game's changed a lot since then, huh?

When Stackhouse, now a 71-year-old retired schoolteacher in Ontario, recently returned to PPG Paints Arena as part of the Penguins' honoring their better players from the past, his reception from the current faithful was warm and wonderful. A longtime team official would tell me later that night he was more heartened by that than anything else about the event, adding that the irony is that Stackhouse was very much the type of defenseman who'd be appreciated by modern hockey fans.

No question. Again, the game's changed.

But the scapegoating?

Sure, scapegoating occurs all over sports fandom, including with those who follow the Steelers and Pirates. I've just never experienced to the degree it's seen with some -- not all, obviously -- who follow the Penguins.

Repeating here: Johnson's contract was bad. His performance was bad. 

And within both, it's eminently fair to criticize Johnson for his play, Mike Sullivan for utilizing him as he did and, above all, Jim Rutherford for having acquired him. That's life in big-time sports.

But blaming pretty much everything that'd go wrong for the Penguins on a single player out of the 20 permitted to dress on a given night or for a given playoff series ... that's scapegoating. That's the very definition of scapegoating. And that's not just ignorance. That's hockey ignorance.

And while understanding I'll tick off a ton of those fans by writing this, I'll do so unapologetically: That's what happens in Toronto.

Also this: Don't become Toronto.

Not because of people's feelings or anything mushy like that. But rather, because it's counterproductive to the broader cause.

In 1967, the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. That was the last year of the NHL's Original Six. The following year, the league doubled in size to a dozen teams, including the birth of the Penguins. And ever since then, the Leafs haven't even made it back to a single Stanley Cup Final. Despite having the deepest pockets of any of the league's franchises. Despite having a following that's as passionate as any in professional sports.

Know why?

OK, name all the great Toronto players in the half-century that's elapsed since then.

Off the top of my head, I'll go with Borje Salming, Darryl Sittler, Rick Vaive, Wendel Clark, Mats Sundin, Phil Kessel ... and the current crop that's led by Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares. These are or were excellent players, all of them. But we're a million miles beyond it being coincidence that the collective can't even come close to the Cup. And I've forever believed that's because the Toronto market will build up players -- even wholly ordinary ones like, say, Nikolai Antropov -- into these budding iconic megastars, infuse all applicable pressure onto them, then tear them to shreds when they don't match up.

Same happens to the stars. On July 1, 2018, when Tavares was signed out of free agency away from the Islanders, it was supposed to portend the rise of one of franchise and the fall of another. Instead, the Leafs are still the Leafs, and the Islanders were just a couple wins away from the Final. 

Instead, the same Toronto media that crushed Kessel and forced him to Pittsburgh, the same one that loved Tavares for this adorable tweet the day he signed ...

... is now doing this:

Dude's got 148 points in 145 games since his arrival. And that's 'ordinary.'

It's not just reporters, either. It takes no more than a cursory glance at Toronto fandom, whether through social media or upon listening to their not one but two 24-hour sports stations while driving up there, to know it's foundational. And rabid. And relentless.

Players are aware of this. Every last one of them, including Tavares, will speak openly and candidly of the additional pressure of being employed there. Only they'll do so with a different intonation than those in Montreal, which matches Toronto's passion and immensely exceeds its successes. When it comes to the Canadiens, they'll speak of the reverence for the team's history and so forth. Not as if they're about to undertake a mission of survival.

Additionally, the hyping and inflating of existing talent, in a salary-cap system, prices out the possibility of a strong supporting cast. Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Tavares currently consume $40 million -- roughly half -- of the team's $81.5 million salary cap allotment. That's the main reason the Maple Leafs had to dump off Kasperi Kapanen to the Penguins, and they stated as much. They'll lose others, as well.

What's this all have to do with Johnson?

Don't become Toronto.

Don't become so absurdly hyperbolic, to either extreme, that it begins influencing bad management.

In this case, to stress yet again, the bad management was signing Johnson to a five-year contract. Never should've happened. And although Rutherford was right on this day to point out, "When I signed him, we weren't planning on having a cap at $81.5 million. With COVID being here and having a flat cap and a lower cap than we expected, these are some of the things we have to do," it hardly takes him off the hook. He'll now have to cope with $3.2 million of dead cap next season alone, between Johnson and Nick Bjugstad.

That stinks.

But the vitriol, the venom generally aimed at Johnson ... that's a separate matter. The whole hockey world took notice of it. Social media was loaded with responses from coast to coast about the joy Pittsburgh's feeling today, and it wasn't any different from within.

I wish this one were an isolated exception:

So, who's next?

Can't be Dominik Simon, since he wasn't tendered a qualifying offer on the same day Johnson was bought out, stripping away the clear scapegoating successor.

My money's on ... I don't know, Zach Aston-Reese?

It's got to be someone, right?

No?

Maybe not.

Pittsburgh's been better at hockey than Toronto for a long, long time, and it can be better at this, too. Ever since Mario Lemieux's arrival, the Penguins gained -- and earned -- a reputation as being a haven for talented players, a place where they'd be respected on and off the ice, even when dining in public. And we witnessed, time and again, that pay off, from Larry Murphy to Robert Lang to Alexei Kovalev to James Neal to Justin Schultz to countless others. That respect, that courtesy contributed more to those five Cup banners than most will ever realize.

Being known for brutishly treating a bad defenseman ... that'll contribute to something else entirely.