Penguins Place John Ludvig On LTIR, Recall Ryan Shea

11:30 AM: John Ludvig has been moved to LTIR. He has been announced as dealing with an upper-body injury.

10:30 AM: The Pittsburgh Penguins have placed defenseman John Ludvig on injured reserve and recalled Ryan Shea from the minor leagues. Shea has been up-and-down from the minor leagues since clearing waivers on December 18th. He’ll now fill in for Ludvig, whose injury is currently undisclosed, though he did miss the team’s Tuesday matchup against the Washington Capitals. This is Ludvig’s second move to injured reserve this season, previously being placed on the list with a concussion that cleared up in late-November.

Ludvig is playing out his rookie season in Pittsburgh this year, after the Penguins claimed him off of waivers from the Florida Panthers before the start of the season. He was originally a third round draft selection in the 2019 NHL Draft. He played his first professional season two years after his draft, scoring eight points in 13 games as a rookie for the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch. Ludvig spent parts of the next two seasons with the Charlotte Checkers, though he only managed a combined 57 games and 17 points with the club. He now finds himself in Pittsburgh, who briefly assigned him to the AHL for a conditioning stint after returning from his concussion. Ludvig did little in his pair of games with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, recording no points and two penalty minutes.

Pittsburgh is replacing one rookie with another in Shea, a 26-year-old defenseman originally drafted in the fourth round of the 2015 NHL Draft by the Chicago Blackhawks. Shea played one more season of juniors after his draft, before playing in a full four years at Northeastern University. He similarly made his AHL debut in 2020-21, recording six assists in 27 games, and joined the Penguins organization via a one-year, $775K two-way contract signed on July 1st. Shea is still searching for his first NHL point, with six penalty minutes and a -2 being the only changes to his stat line through is first 22 career games. Shea has also gone without a point in four AHL games this year.