Penguins A to Z: Jack St. Ivany remains a long-term project
With the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2022-23 season coming to an end without any postseason action, the Tribune-Review will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 49 individuals signed to an NHL contract — including those whose deals do not begin until next season — with the organization, from mid-level prospect Corey Andonovski to top-six winger Jason Zucker.
This series will publish every weekday leading into the NHL Draft on June 28 and 29.
(Note: All contract information courtesy of Cap Friendly.)
Jack St. Ivany
Position: Defenseman
Shoots: Right
Age: 23
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 195 pounds
2022-23 AHL statistics: 63 games, eight points (zero goals, eight assists)
Contract: In the first year of a two-year entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $857,500. Pending restricted free agent in the 2024 offseason.
(Note: St. Ivany is exempt from waivers for any transactions involving a minor league affiliate.)
Acquired: Unrestricted free agent signing, Aug. 20, 2022
Last season: Jack St. Ivany’s arrival to the Penguins was a familiar tale on two fronts.
First, with the franchise having dealt away so many future assets in the previous decade-plus, management was willing to flip over any stone in search of a viable prospect with NHL potential. That led to St. Ivany signing with the Penguins in late August.
Second, he was a former Philadelphia Flyers prospect. In 2018, St. Ivany was drafted by the Flyers in the fourth round (No. 112 overall) but never signed with that organization and, by NHL rules, became a free agent last summer. That prompted former Penguins general manager Ron Hextall and assistant general manager Chris Pryor, to scoop up the player they drafted when they ran the Flyers’ front office.
They had some limited success with another former Flyers draft pick when they claimed reserve defenseman Mark Friedman off waivers in February of 2021.
Assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton fairly late into training camp on Oct. 2, St. Ivany spent his first professional season at the American Hockey League level.
Scratched from the lineup for the team’s first four games, St. Ivany wound up being a regular presence on the ice as he appeared in 63 of a potential 72 games.
Opening the season on the third pairing with veteran left-hander Xavier Ouellet, St. Ivany largely had an unremarkable but steady campaign as he learned the professional game.
A rare presence on the scoreboard, St. Ivany’s high point of 2022-23 came during a 4-3 home overtime win against the Hartford Wolf Pack when he recorded three assists (or 37.5% of his offense for the season).
By the end of the season, as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s postseason hopes were snuffed out, St. Ivany had risen to the team’s second defensive pairing.
The future: St. Ivany had a solid, if unspectacular, first professional season and did just about everything within his limitations to take a step forward toward his development.
Now, he needs to find a way to earn a second contract. That task is a little more daunting after Hextall and Pryor had their employment involuntarily halted in April. But it’s not impossible for St. Ivany to win over new management under president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas.
A cerebral player with some natural gifts, namely his lengthy reach, St. Ivany remains a long-term project as a bottom-pairing defenseman.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.