Penguins defenseman Jack St. Ivany is expected to miss eight weeks following surgery on his left hand. He’ll join veteran rearguard Ryan Graves on IR.
Following a bit of a bumpy start highlighted by a tendency to turn the puck over, I thought the rangy 26-year-old Californian had settled in nicely on the third pairing next to Ryan Shea. His 5v5 goals for percentage (65%) is second-best on the team behind newcomer Egor Chinakhov.
With seven assists in 17 games, including recent back-to-back, two-assist outings, Jack was contributing to the attack while providing some thump (40 hits) and stay-at-home grit (23 blocked shots) from the backline.
With St. Ivany on the mend, look for veteran Connor Clifton or recent acquisition Ilya Solovyov to step into the mix.
Elsewhere on the RX list, the Baby Pens have placed forwards Tristan Broz and Joona Koppanen on IR. The former leads Wilkes in scoring with 28 points (14+14) in 36 games. The latter? Joona’s been on a heater since a mid-December reassignment with five goals and 10 points in 15 AHL games.
