Colorado Avalanche Celebrating Erik Johnson on Twitter

Colorado Avalanche alternate captain and veteran blueliner Erik Johnson was celebrated in a series of tweets by the team’s PR team.

The Colorado Avalanche social media team was at it again last season. As always, they did a great job of producing content about the players who make up our favorite team.

Not long after the season ended, they re-tweeted some of their best posts about given players all in a single day. I loved Erik Johnson day because he’s my favorite. I still remember waking up and discovering Colorado had traded for a new defenseman — and watching while everyone tore him apart for the next year-and-a-half or so.

I watched this kid (because at that time he was still a kid, not the veteran he is now). I saw he had so much potential if we’d all just have patience. Well, guess what — he’s our captain of the blueline now, our cornerstone on defense. And, yes, the mechanism of transfer is already in place. However, our Condor still has essential roles to play for the team.

Here’s how the team’s celebration of Johnson started:

Erik has played in nine seasons with the Colorado Avalanche. The trade was in February of 2011, so he finished out that season with Colorado. He’s currently the longest-tenured player on the team.

To show you how long he’s been around the Avs:

That’s 500 games just in Colorado! He suited up in 22 more after that game, counting the playoffs. In all, he’s played 717 regular season games in the NHL, recording 287 points (77 goals, 210 assists). He’s twice reached the 39-point mark, once with St. Louis and once with Colorado. His career-high in goals was 12, achieved in 2014-15.

I have long admired Erik Johnson’s leadership. I’ve seen him helping along the young players in practices and in games. I’ve watched him serve as a liaison between the team and the fans and the team and the officials during games.

At the beginning of last season, 2017-18, Johnson was finally named an alternate captain. It was a long-overdue honor.

So, Johnson will never be the highest-scoring defenseman on the Avalanche, even with Tyson Barrie gone. However, he knows how to score the big, clutch goals:

Now, granted, the Avs had already clinched the playoffs thanks to getting the game to overtime. But, I can tell you, I was at that game, and the crowd was electrified by EJ’s overtime winner.

It’s great to make the playoffs, but it’s even better to win to make the playoffs.

Now, Johnson isn’t quite the largest player on the team — that honor goes to Nikita Zadorov. However, EJ is a close second in both height and weight. Yet he can get that big frame even higher in celebration:

Yes, you do. You really do.

Midway through the season, Colorado was in a disastrous slump. These days, players don’t like to admit anymore that’s they’re superstitious, but they are.

Well, about halfway through the season, EJ started warming up sans helmet:

And Colorado started winning. I’m not going to say the two things are correlated. I’m also not going to say they’re not because I was doing all sorts of crazy superstitious things to get the Avs back on track.

Side note about the warming up helmetless thing: Some fans think the league needs to mandate the players must wear their helmets in warmups to avoid injuries. These are the best hockey players in the world, thus some of the best skaters in the world. They know what’s at stake — don’t infantilize them.

Anyway, stepping off the soap box to acknowledge something that’s straight truth:

Erik Johnson has never been an Avalanche with all his teeth, and now it’s just like the most normal aspect of his personality.

Anyway, the Colorado Avalanche’s cornerstone defenseman has been gallivanting around towns sipping wine and racing horses. He had offseason surgery, but he appears to be doing just fine in recovery.

I can’t wait to see Erik Johnson back in action for the team.