Claimed: Better late than never!

[Quik 4,113]

Johnsson finally starting to feel at home in VHLM

Star defenceman showing why he is so highly touted.

 

 

Whitehorse, YT - The VHLM Regular Season is a long one, where teams play 72 games in a group of only 5, that means teams face each other 18 times each in a balanced VHLM schedule. No other league in the world sees such a large percentage of games against the same opponents, and it means that it should get easier to figure out the other teams' strategies the later into the season that it gets. This line of thinking holds true for Yukon Rush defenceman Mats Johnsson, who had everything click 50 games into his VHLM career.

 

After suiting up for just a single playoff game last season, a game 7 loss to the Finalist Las Vegas Aces while still a member of the Oslo Storm, and then an inexplicable benching for the first 4 games of this season (editor's note: all of Yukon's stars were benched as their GM was on a opiate-induced rampage, and unable to coherently form a sentence, much less a line-up) Johnsson managed a respectable first 49 games to his regular season. The star defenceman put up just over a point-per-game, with 9 goals and 42 assists through his first 49 games, good enough for 51 points and a top 5 seating in the league's assist leaders! Respectable numbers for sure, but not numbers that would bring him close to earning full bonuses once the season ends.

 

Since suiting up for his 50th game of the season, however, Johnsson has been a man possessed, posting 8 multi-point games en route to nearly doubling his goal total with 8 in his last 10 games, while assisting on 16 others, to put up an incredible 24 points in his last 10 games, vaulting him out of a battle for 10th, all the way up to 5th, among defensemen in scoring!

 

To put those numbers in context, had Johnsson been playing his full season at this pace, he would sit 2nd in the league goals with 47 (Sergei Komarov - 49), 1st in assists with 94 (Casey Jones - 87) and 1st in the league in points with a whopping 141 (Jones - 120)! If he can play at this pace to close out the season's final 9 games, Johnsson will end the year with 24 goals, 72 assists, and a very impressive 96 points, which, incredibly, is unlikely to push him past any of the 4 defenders ahead of him in points this season!

 

Unfortunately, the individual success hasn't exactly translated into team success. They have been better than their season on a whole, but at just a 5-4-1 pace, that would not be enough to move them out of their current 4th place standing. Instead, fans are left wondering where was this Johnsson earlier in the year, when the team struggled for offence, and can he continue this into the playoffs, where perhaps the struggling Rush might be able to surprise an off-guard opponent and sneak a series win! Until they have those answers, they can just sit back and enjoy the show that is the current hot streak that Johnsson is on.