Johnson is the first AFL match review panel booking for the new year after he was cited for striking Ballantyne into his stomach seven minutes into the second-half of an NAB Cup tie in Perth on Saturday.
Johnson can accept the automatic ban and miss the opening AFL home-and-away engagement of the premiership season.
Under new AFL regulations match review bans must be served in the home-and-away premiership season and not just through the summer series.
Even an early guilty plea from the decorated Cat will force Johnson out of his first AFL premiership game of the new seasons.
His total points allocation from an uncompromising match review process is 205.38 which automatically carries a two-game suspension.
A guilt plea will bring Johnson's down by 25 percent and under 200 points and just a one-match ban.
Johnson, 29, was charged with a level two striking offence and 125 demerit points, which is an automatic one match suspension.
Johnson already has 80 carry-over points from a one-match penalty that forced the classy on-baller and clever goal-shark to miss Geelong's only final last September when the Cats were ironically, bundled out of the premiership race by Fremantle in Melbourne.
He can accept a one-match sanction with an early plea, due to his previous poor record.
His contact into the feisty Ballantyne was assessed as intentional, of low impact and into the body.
If the triple Cats premiership gun takes his ban and misses the season launch, Johnson will sit out of a Round 1 blockbuster against power outfit Hawthorn on Easter Monday.