- The Penguins announced Blake Lizotte is week-to-week with an upper-body injury
- Prospect Oliver Okuliar is week-to-week too, with a lower-body issue
- Read below for what Pittsburgh loses with Lizotte out of the lineup
Pittsburgh’s fourth line just took a hit.
The Penguins announced Monday that Blake Lizotte is week-to-week with an upper-body injury. Forward Oliver Okuliar got the same label with a lower-body problem he picked up at Sunday’s skate.
Lizotte practiced with the group Sunday and was pulled from Monday’s session:
Pittsburgh opens the regular season next Wednesday, and the shortened preseason on the new NHL calendar leaves very little runway. The team did not say whether Lizotte will miss games that count.
Losing him matters more than his point totals let on. The 28-year-old put up seven goals and 19 points in 55 games last season and added two assists in six playoff games, which is bottom-six production.
What he actually does is take the hard shifts. Lizotte started 85 percent of his even-strength shifts in the defensive zone last season, won an even 50 percent of his faceoffs and still came out at 50.9 percent Corsi with a 91.6 percent on-ice save percentage behind him.
Since signing in Pittsburgh as a free agent on July 1, 2024, the 5-foot-9 center has 18 goals and 39 points in 114 games at 13:17 a night. The Penguins rewarded that with a three-year, $6.75 million extension in January that runs through 2029 at a $2.25 million cap hit.
Availability has been the catch. The Lindstrom, Minnesota product has missed better than 30 percent of Pittsburgh’s games since he arrived, and this one starts the same way.
Lizotte went undrafted, played two years at St. Cloud State and signed with the Kings out of college. A checking center who eats defensive-zone starts is not easy to replace on short notice, and the Penguins have about a week to figure it out.
