PensBurgh Top 25 Under 25: #12 - John Ludvig
An early-season waiver claim last year may be relegated to the minors.
The 2024 version of our PensBurgh Top 25 Under 25 countdown rolls on with a waiver-claimed defenseman who made his NHL debut with the Pittsburgh Penguins last season.
Graduates and departed players from last year’s list
The best of the rest
#25: Raivis Ansons
#24: Kirill Tankov
#23: Isaac Belliveau
#22: Taylor Gauthier
#21: Chase Pietila
#20: Emil Jarventie
#19: Kalle Kangas
#18: Joona Vaisanen
#17: Filip Kral
#16: Mac Swanson
#15: Jonathan Gruden
#14: Cruz Lucius
#13: Emil Pieniniemi
#12: John Ludvig
2023 Ranking: N/A
Age: 24 (Aug. 2, 2000)
Acquired Via: Waiver claim on Oct. 9, 2023
Height/Weight: 6-foot-1, 213 pounds
John Ludvig is a defenseman of a rapidly fading era. Earning a reputation in the AHL as a hit-throwing, shot-blocking, penalty-killing defender, the Florida Panthers waived the then-23-year-old at the start of last season.
In Kyle Dubas’ short time with the Penguins, he has not been afraid to utilize the waiver wire to improve his team, hence the acquisition of Ludvig last October.
Ludvig’s NHL debut on Oct. 24 against the Dallas Stars came with highs and lows when he concussed himself while dishing out an open-ice hit on Dallas forward Radek Faksa.
That concussion sent Ludvig to injured reserve and kept him out of action for a month. Four games into his return, Ludvig fought Nashville’s Michael McCarron.
He again was placed on IR following more head trauma by the end of the calendar year. This time, the cause was the being on the losing end of a fight with the Islanders’ Matt Martin.
Ludvig would remain on the shelf or on an AHL rehab stint until Feb. 10, played in four more games in mid-February, and then was a healthy scratch until March 8. Ludvig got into 10 games during March, mostly on the third pair, but eventually, illness and injury made him a scratch in 11 out of the final 12 games of the season.
Ludvig had surgery to repair a tendon in his wrist and was slated for a 4-6-month recovery time as of May 15.
So, you can already see the reputation he tried carving for himself as a rough-edged player that was willing to pay the price for dishing and receiving physical punishment.
In just 33 games played last season, Ludvig registered three goals, five points, and a team-leading five fights.
Fast forward to now, and Ludvig is thrown together in a defensive left-side logjam with players like Ryan Shea, Sebastian Aho, and Matt Grzelcyk all vying for a permanent spot with Marcus Petterson and Ryan Graves entrenched as lineup defenders.
While an overabundance of depth can be a good problem, Aho and Grzelcyk were off-season acquisitions. Ludvig could theoretically beat out everyone in training camp to take the LD3 spot. He could begin the season as defenseman with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, likely recalled in the event of injury or sitting in Pittsburgh as the seventh defenseman kept around for depth — and perhaps out of fear some team might do what the Pens opted to do and claim Ludvig on waivers themselves if he hit them again. Or he could start out on the IR, dependent on the timing of his wrist rehab. (The latter scenario a convenient potential slow play by the team to see what their injury/roster situation is like once the season gets under way, buying them valuable time before making a decision about Ludvig under the moniker of getting him completely healed up with a timeline that could drag into mid-November..)
Ludvig is difficult to rank this year, because he conceivably could play no further meaningful games with the NHL Penguins, should his camp goes in a negative direction via performance or wrist rehab that cost him a normal off-season of training. At the other end f the spectrum, his career as an NHL regular (or pseudo-regular) could lift off if he is able to show improvement under new assistant coach David Quinn and stay healthy and available to play, for a potential better case scenario, with many other murky outcomes sandwiched in between.
Ludvig’s roster spot is not assured, but surely the organization values him for his physicality and in a perfect world would be able to find a way to keep him on board for a while longer to further evaluate if he can make a jump with the team in his second NHL season. Pittsburgh was able to find a way through all of 2023-24 to go without putting Ludvig back on the waiver wire, it will be interesting to see how long they might (or might not) choose to do the same coming up in the season ahead.