Penguins defenseman Jack St. Ivany will miss six weeks with a lower-body injury, the team announced Thursday. As a player on a two-way deal who played fewer than 50 games last season, he will be eligible for season-opening injured reserve. His $775K cap hit will be prorated down to around $200K as a result, offering some relief to Pittsburgh while they’re unable to waive him because of his injury.
St. Ivany left last night’s 5-3 exhibition win over the Sabres midway through the first period, but it wasn’t apparent what caused him to exit, Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review noted. His hopes of cracking the opening night roster for the second year in a row have now been dashed.
The 26-year-old was a free agent signed out of Boston College back in 2022 after the Flyers, who selected him with a fourth-round pick in 2018, opted not to sign him. He spent the next year and a half playing exclusively for AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, but a breakout defensive showing in 2023-24 ended up getting him a call-up to the Pens for the last few weeks of the season. He impressed in a bottom-pairing role in his first big-league look, recording an assist with an even rating and 30 hits in 14 appearances while averaging 13:42 per game. He parlayed that performance into a unique three-year extension that carried a two-way structure for the first two years before becoming a one-way deal for 2026-27.
That also carried St. Ivany through to an opening-night job for the 2024-25 season, but it didn’t stick. He had a lone assist and a -3 rating in 19 appearances before being returned to the AHL in early December. He remained there for the rest of the season aside from an emergency recall in March that didn’t result in any playing time.
It’s worth noting that St. Ivany had a great stretch of play in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after the demotion. He was one of the AHL club’s best two-way defenders and finished the year with 16 points and a +9 rating in 37 games. The bevy of depth additions Pittsburgh made on the blue line in free agency this summer, plus wanting to keep paths open for youngsters like Harrison Brunicke and Owen Pickering to grab spots, made an opening-night job a problematic task for St. Ivany to achieve this time around, though.
He’ll now look to make his season debut sometime in November. Whether that’s in Pittsburgh or WBS remains to be seen. He’s waiver-eligible for the first time this season, so he’ll need to pass through them unclaimed if it’s the latter.
St. Ivany is the third player projected to carry a prorated cap hit on SOIR for the Penguins, per PuckPedia. They’ll have around $700K in cap space tied up in him, Joel Blomqvist, and Rutger McGroarty, all of whom are expected to miss a significant chunk of time. They’ll also likely have veterans Kevin Hayes and Bryan Rust on standard injured reserve, the latter of whom was just ruled out today for two weeks with an undisclosed injury.