Johnson Earns World Championship Berth

Wolf Pack goaltender Chad Johnson will be getting some extra action in this spring, as a member of Canada’s team at the 2010 IIHF World Championship, which starts May 7 in Germany.

Johnson is one of two goaltenders on the Canadian squad as of right now. The other is the St. Louis Blues’ Chris Mason, who has been a number-one guy in the NHL for the past three seasons, so one would think that Johnson is ticketed for a backup role. Still, the fact that Johnson has earned a call from General Manager Mark Messier and Hockey Canada shows the high esteem in which the young netminder is held in the hockey world, in that the majority of his action this year, 44 games, was in the AHL.

Searching through World Championship archives, the last time I could find Team Canada having a goaltender who had spent the majority of that particular season in the minors was 2001. J.S. Giguere was one of Canada’s three backstops that year, after he played 23 AHL games with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks. Even in that instance, Giguere got into 34 NHL games with Anaheim that season, significantly more than the five that Johnson played in this year with the Rangers.

It’s been a long season already for Johnson, what with all of the back-and-forth he logged between the AHL and NHL, and the most games he ever played in a single season in college was 35, but I have to think that the honor of being tabbed to wear his country’s jersey and share a locker room with luminaries like Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, Corey Perry, Matt Duchene and others, will make what has already been a thrill-ride of a first pro season for him just that much more memorable.