page_title: Eddie Johnston
section_title: Coach and general manager
hierarchical_section_title: Eddie Johnston / Coach and general manager
caption_attribution_description: English: Eddie Johnston, former head coach and general manager for the Pittsburgh Penguins, returned to Pittsburgh to participate in the pregame ceremony honoring the final regular season game to be played at Civic Arena (Mellon Arena). April 8, 2010.
context_page_description: Edward Joseph Johnston is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender and former coach and general manager in the National Hockey League. His professional career spanned fifty-three years, mostly in the NHL. He won two Stanley Cups as a player with the Boston Bruins in 1970 and 1972, and a third in 2009 as senior advisor for hockey operations with the Pittsburgh Penguins, an organization he served in various capacities for twenty-five years. He was the last NHL goaltender to play every minute of every game in a season, in 1963–64.
context_section_description: The year after he retired as a player, Johnston became the coach of the New Brunswick Hawks, the Chicago Black Hawks' new American Hockey League farm team, and lead them to a 41–29–10 record and second place in its division.
  He became head coach of the Black Hawks during the 1979–80 NHL season and compiled a 34–27–19 record.  The following year, he became head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins and in 1983 was appointed general manager.  He held the GM post at Pittsburgh for five years.  Johnston oversaw Pittsburgh's selection of Mario Lemieux in the entry draft; without Lemieux, Johnston said in reference to the Penguins' home arena, Mellon Arena, "This place would be a parking lot."  Lemieux would come to be known as the team's repeated savior, as well as one of the greatest hockey players of all-time.
  After Johnston left the Penguins for the first time in 1988, he served as the general manager of the Hartford Whalers from 1989 until his release in 1992.  Johnston's tenure is remembered with distinct displeasure in Hartford, where he is viewed as ultimately being responsible for the franchise's eventual relocation to North Carolina, by having dismantled a playoff team through unproductive trades, and by allowing relations between captain and star player Ron Francis and head coach Rick Ley to deteriorate to the point where Francis was accused of "playing out the final year of his contract"; Francis was stripped of his captaincy by Ley in December 1990.
  Johnston subsequently traded Francis, along with his roommate Ulf Samuelsson, to Pittsburgh as part of a six-player deal on March 4, 1991.  Although some thought that Hartford got the better end of the bargain as center John Cullen had been among the league leaders in scoring that season and Zarley Zalapski was seen as a young defenseman with great promise, the deal rapidly became one of the most lopsided and notorious in NHL history as the popular Francis and Samuelsson immediately went on to play major roles in Pittsburgh's first two Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992, while neither Cullen nor Zalapski could duplicate their success with Pittsburgh in Hartford.
  After being considered for the position for the 1992–93 season but having been unable to come to terms on a contract with Pittsburgh, Johnston was once again hired as head coach of the Penguins for 1993–94 and guided the Pens until the 1996–97 season, when he was asked to step down due to the Penguins' failure to win a third Stanley Cup under his guidance. He spent the next nine years as the assistant general manager to Craig Patrick before being named Senior Adviser for Hockey Operations in July 2006, his 23rd year with the Pittsburgh Penguins organization.  It was in that capacity as the Penguins finally won their third Stanley Cup in 2009 that E.J. did the same, winning his first with Pittsburgh, first since 1972, and first as management.
  In 2009, he announced that Game 7 of the Finals would be his last and moved into semi-retirement.
  On April 8, 2010, Johnston joined more than 50 former Penguins being honored in a pre-game ceremony before the final regular season game at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.
  Johnston remains the Penguins' all-time leader in coaching losses (224) and games coached (516).
  On January 7, 2014 against the Vancouver Canucks, Dan Bylsma passed him as the Penguins all-time leader in coaching wins with 233.
caption: Johnston in Pittsburgh for the final regular season game at Mellon Arena, April 2010.
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