Penguins A to Z: Ludovic Waeber leaves with no regrets
With the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2023-24 season coming to an end without any postseason action, TribLive will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 52 individuals signed to an NHL contract — including those whose deals do not begin until next season — with the organization, from fourth-line center Noel Acciari to reserve winger Radim Zohorna.
This series is scheduled to be published every day leading into the second day of the NHL Draft on Saturday.
(Note: All contract information courtesy of Cap Friendly.)
Ludovic Waeber
Position: Goaltender
Catches: Left
Age: 27
Height: 6-foot-1
Weight: 175 pounds
2023-24 AHL statistics: 19 games, 9-7-0 record, 2.80 goals-against average, .893 save percentage, two shutouts
2023-24 ECHL statistics: One game, 0-1-0 record, 5.00 GAA, .762 save percentage, zero shutouts
Contract: Signed to a one-year two-way contract with a salary cap hit of $950,000. Pending restricted free agent this upcoming offseason
Acquired: Trade, March 8, 2024
Last season: An established veteran who had played professionally in his native Switzerland dating to 2012, Waeber had a pretty admirable professional existence in that country’s National League, one of the better leagues outside of the NHL.
Even with that, he decided to sign a two-way contract with the Florida Panthers on July 12, 2023.
With no promises of playing time at the NHL level, what prompted him to make the jump from a comfortable situation he had earned in Switzerland?
“I had my spot in Europe,” Waeber said following a practice with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in Cranberry on March 15. “It was a great career so far. When I had the chance to sign with Florida, I didn’t want to be at the end of my career with regrets. I just wanted to take the chance to come here and see how I could do and improve here.”
Assigned to the Panthers’ American Hockey League affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers, on Oct. 2, Waeber spent the bulk of the season in North Carolina largely serving as the backup to Spencer Knight, the Panthers’ first-round pick in 2019.
The high-water mark of his tenure with the Checkers came on Nov. 17 in the form of a 21-save shutout in a 1-0 road win against the San Diego Gulls.
After a brief one-game assignment to the ECHL with the Florida Everblades in early March, Waeber was dealt to the Penguins in exchange for fellow reserve goaltender Magnus Hellberg.
Assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Waeber put up strong numbers in limited actions with the AHL Penguins while serving as the backup to prospect Joel Blomqvist. Appearing in four games, Waeber had a 3-1-0 record with a 1.78 goals-against average, a .919 save percentage and one shutout. That shutout came via a 21-save effort in a 2-0 road win against the rival Lehigh Valley Phantoms on April 20.
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On May 24, Waeber returned to Switzerland after signing with Kloeten in the National League.
The future: The Penguins mainly took on Waeber in order to unload Hellberg and didn’t have any kind of plans on him being around beyond this season.
As for Waeber, he took his shot at playing in the NHL and came up short. And that’s fine.
By his own words, Waeber leaves with no regrets.
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.
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