Some of you caught an item on the TSN website from Darren Dreger, talking about how “Johnson’s father, Jack Johnson Sr., contacted St. Petersburg prior to the World Hockey Championship to see if the team would have interest in signing his son to a one-year contract” in the KHL.

I called Dean Lombardi this morning, and he told me the same thing he said he told Dreger: “It’s news to me. It doesn’t affect us either way.”

A couple other thoughts on this…

1) Call me crazy, but I would have sworn that Johnson Jr. actually has an agent, one that didn’t move from Michigan to live with his son…

2) Isn’t this tampering? Johnson is under contract until July 1. Why would people in his “camp” be talking to anyone, other than the Kings, about signing a contract? Doesn’t seem very wise, does it? When I inquired about the legality of this, Lombardi said, “You’re right, maybe we should sue them. … They don’t have the right to solicit or express interest.”

I have no intention of challenging Dreger on his story, but note that the blog post is very carefully written with words such as “interest,” “it is believed,” and “possibility.” If you take all those letters and rearrange them, you can probably come up with the phrase, “No chance in hell.” At the same time, Lombardi said today that the Kings haven’t had much recent communication with Johnson’s agent — or his father, presumably — so I’m sure that will fuel more conspiracy theories.