Taking on the Metropolitan Division-leading New York Rangers tonight, the Pittsburgh Penguins are in dire need of defensive depth and will receive that as the team announced John Ludvig has officially been activated off of the LTIR. It is unknown at this point whether or not the Penguins will dress six or seven defensemen tonight, but Ludvig will be in the lineup regardless.
Over the last several days, the Penguins have seen injuries to defensemen Chad Ruhwedel and Pierre-Olivier Joseph, while also losing out on forward Rickard Rakell for the foreseeable future. To address the lack of defensemen, Pittsburgh signed Dmitri Samorukov last night and put him on the active roster this morning.
Somewhat clamoring to add more bodies to the roster last night, the Penguins also recalled forwards Alexander Nylander and Jansen Harkins from their AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Being one of the principal points of the offseason, the new President of Hockey Operations and General Manager, Kyle Dubas, made a point to add more depth throughout the entirety of the Penguins organization, specifically for situations such as this.
For Ludvig in particular, he was acquired via waivers only three days before Pittsburgh’s first game, coming over from the Florida Panthers organization. Ludvig was originally drafted 69th overall in the 2019 NHL Draft, and experienced the best AHL season of his career last for the Charlotte Checkers, scoring three goals and 14 assists in 54 games played.
There is not a high expectation for Ludvig to become a main factor of the Penguins blue line, but at 23 years old, he has plenty of potential to become an important part of the team moving forward. Injured in the only game he played this season, Ludvig managed just under five and a half minutes of ice time, holding a -1 rating.