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Andy Johnson Named USHL General Manager of the Year

06/02/2022, 11:45am CDT
By USHL

General Manager Put Together Clark Cup Champion Roster in Sioux City

The United States Hockey League (USHL) and Sioux City Musketeers announced Thursday Andy Johnson was named the League’s General Manager of the Year for the 2021-22 season. 

League awards are voted on by each Member Club’s General Manager after each Club nominates their players and front office personnel for awards. 

Johnson currently serves Sioux City as General Manager and Director of Scouting and has been with the team since the 2017-18 season. The Eau Claire, Wisc. native started with the Musketeers as Director of Scouting during the 2017-18 season, added Assistant General Manager to his role for the 2018-19 season and was promoted to his current dual role ahead of the 2019-20 season. Prior to joining the Musketeers, Johnson served four seasons as a USHL Scout, beginning with the Muskegon Lumberjacks in the 2013-14 season before spending three seasons as a Scout for the Waterloo Black Hawks from 2014-17. 

This season served as the culmination of the past three years serving as the Musketeers’ General Manager, ending with Johnson’s first Clark Cup Championship and the first for Sioux City in the Tier I era of the USHL. Johnson assembled a roster that finished second in the Western Conference and third in the USHL in the regular season with a 41-16-4-1 record. This season’s team set Sioux City Tier I records for 41 wins and marked just the second time in the past 20 seasons Sioux City hit the 40-win mark. The team’s 87 points tied a Tier I Musketeers record set during the 2016-17 regular season that ended in Sioux City finishing as a runner-up in the Clark Cup Final. 

Johnson’s squad, led by netminder and Clark Cup Playoffs MVP Alex Tracy and USHL Rookie of the Year, forward, Dylan James beat the Madison Capitols in four games in the Clark Cup Final after dispatching the Anderson Cup Champion Tri-City storm in the Western Conference Finals. The Musketeers finished the 2021-22 Clark Cup Playoffs with an 8-2-0-0 record. 

In addition to James’ Rookie of the Year win this season, Johnson has seen a pair of Musketeers earn postseason honors while at the helm as Akira Schmid was named Goaltender of the Year last season and Bobby Brink earned Forward of the Year honors after the 2018-19 season. Johnson brought Schmid to the Musketeers in a midseason trade the year prior after Schmid was selected by the New Jersey Devils in the 2018 NHL Draft (Round 5, #136 Overall). The Swiss netminder made his professional debut this season, playing in six NHL games with the Devils as well as 39 total appearances (22-9-5) with the team’s AHL affiliate Utica Comets. Brink was selected 16th overall in the 2017 USHL Draft by the Musketeers and went on to collect 74 points in 58 games with Sioux City. Brink was Drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers (2019, Round 2, #34 Overall) after his Forward of the Year award and made his NHL debut this season with the Flyers after helping lead University of Denver to the NCAA Championship and being named a Hobey Baker Finalist in his junior season with the Pioneers. Johnson was also part of the scouting group that brought Jackson Cates to the Waterloo Black Hawks. Cates went on to win Forward of the Year with the Black Hawks during the 2017-18 season and is now a forward with the Philadelphia Flyers after three seasons at University of Minnesota Duluth. 

The USHL will continue its schedule of award announcements in the coming days, including All-USHL First, Second and Third Teams, USHL All-Rookie First and Second Teams, Curt Hammer Award, USHL Student-Athlete of the Year Award, All-Academic Team, Off-Ice Official Crews of the Year and Billet Families of the Year.

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