Nick Johnson relishes new opportunity

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/01/2024 (603 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nick Johnson learned an important lesson at the Western Hockey League’s trade deadline on Jan. 10 — being traded is the easy part.

The Brandon Wheat Kings acquired the six-foot-one, 191-pound forward from Calgary, along with 18-year-old defenceman Rhett Ravndahl, first-round picks in 2025 and 2027 and a fifth-round pick in 2026 from the Portland Winterhawks in exchange for captain Nate Danielson.

“I feel like it didn’t really click in until I actually got here,” Johnson said of the deal. “I heard the news and honestly it was just kind of joy. It did come as a shock — I wasn’t really expecting it — and Portland is a good place, too, but I’ve only heard great things about Brandon so that was another thing I was looking forward to for sure.”

As it turned out, the hard part for Johnson and Ravndahl was making the 2,155-km drive east from Portland in their vehicles, particularly because their timing was awful.

After Johnson put some snow tires on his vehicle — “I only had summer tires on and they were old” — the two began the journey at 6 a.m. on Jan. 11 to meet Johnson’s father in Taber, Alta., en route to their destination of Medicine Hat. The total journey for the first day was just over 1,300 kilometres, which seems fine, but Mother Nature had other ideas.

“That drive was a total of 19 hours straight,” Johnson said. “I think me and Rhett stopped for food twice and obviously for gas, but we got caught in the middle of a snowstorm. We could barely see 10 feet in front of us. It was a disaster.

“We were going 20 kilometres an hour for five hours straight. It was supposed to be a two-hour-stretch, but it turned into five-and-a-half hours because we couldn’t go any faster.”

The Wheat Kings were hosting the Swift Current Broncos on Jan. 12, and the pair were in town by then. They found out where they were billeting a couple of hours earlier and dropped off their stuff, staying long enough to say hello, and then rushed to Westoba Place, arriving in the middle of the first period of what proved to be a 7-3 loss.

Johnson was with Portland last season when they visited Brandon, so he had some sense of what lay ahead. But there were still some surprises in store.

“Their (dressing) room is very, very nice,” Johnson said. “It’s for sure high-end. That was my first thought going into the room ‘Holy, this is really cool.’ It’s a really good setup here. The building is good and the fans seem good, too. I’m really excited.”

Johnson began to skate around age four or five after his father saw a sign advertising Timbits registration at the Springbank Minor Hockey Association on the west side of Calgary. He soon found himself on the ice, noting it wasn’t a great start.

“I didn’t skate,” said Johnson, who has played forward throughout his career. “I was a terrible hockey player in Timbits and so young, too. That’s how I started, and I fell in love with it.”

Johnson’s family includes parents Kade and Juanita, older sister Kayla and younger brother Max, who is in his first year at the U15 level.

The hockey world can be incredibly small, so even though Johnson is from a city of 1.3 million, he played when he was really young with Wheat Kings goalie Ethan Eskit. They won the provincial atom AA championship together, and in peewee lost 2-1 in double overtime in the AA final.

“Me and him go way back,” Eskit said with a chuckle. “We played minor hockey for a few years together and our parents are great friends, me and Nick have always been great friends. It was pretty cool to see when he got traded from Portland. He’s a great guy. I was looking forward to it.”

They last played together in first-year peewee.

“He’s grown into a really good player,” Eskit said. “He has a really good shot, he’s a smart player and has a big body. I think he’ll have a huge impact on our team this year, and it’s great that we’re building for the future.”

If that’s not enough, Johnson is also friends with Brandon defenceman Charlie Elick. The two played prep hockey together at the Edge Academy.

“Me and him are really close buddies,” Johnson said. “That was another thing. I was really happy to go to a team where I had a close buddy who I spent all summer with the past couple of summers. I was really excited.”

After Johnson scored nine goals and added 20 assists in 28 games in his draft year, 2020, he was grabbed in the 10th round, 220th overall, by Portland. He had nine points in five prep hockey games during the ill-fated 2020-21 season which was cancelled due to COVID, and then posted 43 points in 34 games on Edge’s U18 prep team.

He earned a spot with the Winterhawks last season in his 17-year-old year, with three goals, five assists and 35 penalty minutes in 63 games.

“I want to play that power forward role and take pucks to the net,” Johnson said. “I feel like I have that scoring touch, but I like to pass first. I’m more of a playmaker and vision type of guy. I try to find guys on the ice. That’s what I envision myself being like.”

This season, he had five goals and 13 assists in 29 games before sustaining a lower-body injury on Dec. 10 when he was hit from behind into the boards during a game against the Everett Silvertips. The play was serious enough that Eric Jamieson received a major, game misconduct and two-game suspension for the hit.

Johnson was still injured when he was traded, and made his debut against the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Saturday, which just happened to be his 19th birthday.

Brandon head coach and general manager Marty Murray appreciates what he’s seen so far.

“I like his skill set,” Murray said. “He’s a big body and uses his frame well. He missed six weeks before he got to Brandon so I think he’s trying to get himself back into game shape.

“The first couple of practices and the game he was still working on his conditioning and having somebody lean on him, but overall he’s got a nice offensive piece to his game and he’s young and going to have a chance to grow here.”

Johnson said a week of practices after a couple of games have him feeling a lot better. He was on a line with Rylen Roersma and Dominik Petr in his first two games and said he appreciates the chance to skate in some pretty fast company.

“I think there is a lot of opportunity here,” Johnson said. “I had awesome linemates over these past two games. I don’t think it was my best hockey I’ve played so that was a bit of a disappointment for me, but this week for sure I’ve taken action and focused on myself to be better.”

He added, “There is a lot of opportunity here, I just need to capitalize on it.”

His timing is impeccable. Portland visited Calgary on Oct. 29 — Johnson had an assist in a 7-4 loss — and now Brandon heads to his hometown on Friday to kick off a mini three-in-three road trip which will also see them in Red Deer on Saturday and Edmonton on Sunday.

“I’m so excited,” Johnson said. “We did our East trip before with Portland and I got to experience that, but I’m really excited to go home again. All my family is excited. It’s a really good spot for sure.”

As he finds his footing in a new city and regains his game conditioning, Johnson is hopeful both he and the team can be impactful. And if the trip to Brandon proved anything, the big winger has a lot of drive to make things happen.

“I hope we win a lot of games,” Johnson said. “I hope I stay playing good. Before I got injured, I was playing really good. I just want to stay consistent with my game. There were times I was up and down but I want to have a consistent game and help this team win.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @PerryBergson