Vitals
Player: Jack St. Ivany
Born: July 22, 1999 (Age: 26)
Height: 6’4″
Weight: 197 pounds
Hometown: Manhattan Beach, California, USA
Shoots: Right
Draft: 2018, fourth-round, No. 112 overall, by the Philadelphia Flyers
2025-26 Statistics:
Contract Status: St. Ivany is entering the third-year of a three-year, $2.40 million contract that comes with a $850,000 salary cap number.
Story of the Season
St. Ivany did pretty much what was expected of him and served as a capable organizational
depth defenseman. He did not wow you, but he played hard and filled in when needed. As long as he played within that role, he was a fine player to have on the roster. But it seemed that the more he played (both in terms of minutes per game and the actual number of games), the more some of his flaws and shortcomings would become exposed.
He only played in 20 games for the Penguins at the NHL level and eight games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton at the AHL level, while missing several weeks in the middle of the season due to a hand injury. That came after he missed significant time at the start of the regular season due to a foot injury he suffered in a preseason game.
Monthly Splits
Through his first 17 games of the season in December and January there was a lot to like about St. Ivany’s box score numbers. He had seven points, was a plus-7, blocked 23 shots and accumulated 40 hits in about 15:30 of ice-time per game. He was not playing a major role, but he was not exactly serving as a liability.
He only appeared in three games after January, both due to injury and healthy scratches, and did not make the same impact when he got back in the lineup.
Regular season 5v5 advanced stats
Data via Natural Stat Trick. Ranking is out of 11 defensemen on the team who qualified by playing a minimum of 150 minutes.
Corsi For%: 47.7% (10th)
Goals For%: 56.0% (4th)
xGF%: 47.6% (11th)
Scoring Chance %: 50.0% (7th)
High Danger Scoring Chance%: 50.4% (8th)
5v5 on-ice shooting%: 11.4% (5th)
On-ice save%: .918% (1st)
Goals/60: 0.00 (11th)
Assist/60: 1.41 (2nd)
Points/60: 1.41 (4th)
An interesting set of stats here that kind of backs up the eye test with St. Ivany.
When it came to the box score areas, as well as goals for and goals against, he faired pretty well.
When it came to the more underlying aspects of the game like driving possession, scoring chances and expected goals, there was a significant drop-off in play and effectiveness.
In other words: It was a major PDO heater for him in terms of the shooting and save percentages that probably gave a lot of his numbers a boost.
There is also a lot of small sample size noise here given that he only played 297 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey. Ilya Solovyov and Matt Dumba were the only defensemen on the roster that loggest at least 150 minutes of 5-on-5 ice-time, but still played fewer minutes than him.
Highlights
This was probably the most Jack St. Ivany thing to happen this season as he put in a gutsy shift against the Edmonton Oilers, leaving everything he could on the ice to get through it.
Questions to ponder
Has St. Ivany reached his peak as an organizational depth defenseman, or is there still another level he can reach and become a more regular part of the defense?
His ceiling is probably nothing more than a third-pairing defender, but that would still be a step up from what he’s been as a fringe NHL player/healthy scratch. There is no denying his toughness and work ethic, but is there enough here for him talent wise to take another step up from that?
Ideal 2026-27
The first thing that would make 2026-27 better for St. Ivany would be if he could avoid the injury issues that sidelined him for extended periods of time this past season. But the best-case scenario here for the Penguins is that he is able to give them a No. 6 or 7 defenseman that can fill in when needed and give them 14-15 minutes per night where he is not a liability. He is never going to be a big point-producer, and he is probably never going to be a regular in your lineup where you are counting on him to make a significant impact.
But you still probably need at least 10 or 11 defensemen to play for your team over the course of an 82-game season and you need some quality depth to help you get through some of those tough stretches in the middle or end of the season. People are going to miss some games. You need to have somebody that can fill in for them. St. Ivany has at least proved himself to be capable of that.
Bottom line
What you see is what you get from St. Ivany at this point. Even though he is only 26 years old, there is not likely to be much more development or growth here from him as a player.
He’s not somebody you’re going to try and develop, and he’s not somebody you’re going to make a priority in re-signing after the season. He is what he is, and that is probably not changing much.
Final Grade: C
A passable grade for a passable player.
