ST. LOUIS \u2014 After signing a two-year entry-level contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday, Jake Livanavage was a healthy scratch Saturday during a 6-3 home loss to the Washington Capitals.<\/p>\n
And for good reason. After concluding his NCAA career following his junior year at North Dakota, Livanavage trekked to Pittsburgh and wasn\u2019t exactly to in good position to jump right into the fury of an NHL contest.<\/p>\n
But he did get a good seat in the press box.<\/p>\n
Next to Sidney Crosby.<\/p>\n
With the Penguins largely resting their top players after having their postseason positioning locked in, Crosby was scratched as well and had an audience with the 21-year-old Livanavage, a native of Gilbert, Ariz., who grew up a fan of Crosby from the time he was a single-digit-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, it was pretty intimidating,\u201d Livanavage said. \u201cBut first day here was unbelievable. To get that welcome and to be able to sit with him was just an honor and something that I\u2019ll remember for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another life milestone happened Tuesday as Livanavage made his NHL debut in the Penguins\u2019 regular-season finale against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center.<\/p>\n
He opened the contest on the third pairing with Jack St. Ivany.<\/p>\n
With the Penguins dressing a lineup that is similar to what they might deploy for a preseason game, Tuesday\u2019s game appears to be an optimal opportunity to take the training wheels off Livanavage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing for Jake is just go play,\u201d Muse said. \u201cWe were able to give him some information on some things from our playing style that might be a little bit different from what he\u2019s used to at North Dakota. At the same time, you don\u2019t want to do too much. When that puck drops, you\u2019ve got to play, you\u2019ve got to use your instincts. \u2026 Enjoy the moment, enjoy the day. It\u2019s a special day for him and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Undrafted, Livanavage spent three seasons at North Dakota. As a junior, he appeared in 39 games and posted 25 points (five goals, 20 assists). His season at the NCAA level came to a conclusion Thursday when North Dakota was eliminated in the semifinal round of the NCAA Frozen Four, losing to Wisconsin, 2-1.<\/p>\n
By Friday, he signed his contract. The opportunity to go to the NHL right away and not the American Hockey League was attractive to Livanavage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey showed belief as a player,\u201d Livanavage said. \u201cBeing part of this organization is a dream come true and something that I\u2019ll never take for granted. It\u2019s been awesome so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust super grateful to be here and be a part of this organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Novak plays in all 82<\/p>\n
Forward Tommy Novak opened Tuesday\u2019s contest as the Penguins\u2019 first-line center. With that, he was the only member of the team who has appeared in all 82 games in the regular season.<\/p>\n
That is no small accomplishment for a player who missed the final 17 games of last season because of a stress fracture in his left leg.<\/p>\n
His previous career high for games in a season was 71 in 2023-24 with the Nashville Predators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m grateful that nothing (injury-related) happened,\u201d Novak said. \u201cA lot of weird things can happen with injuries in hockey. Just grateful to play a whole season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Novak also has the team\u2019s longest active consecutive games played streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s mostly luck,\u201d Novak said. \u201cThings can happen no matter what you do. Just luck. Trying to prepare myself as best I can. It mostly comes down to nothing bad happening to me this year. Hopefully, it keeps going like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harvey-Pinard recalled<\/p>\n
With a number of the team\u2019s top players expected to be scratched, the Penguins recalled forward Rafael Harvey-Pinard.<\/p>\n
Making his Penguins debut, he opened the contest on the left wing of the fourth line.<\/p>\n
A left-handed shot, Harvey-Pinard (5-foot-9, 179 pounds) is Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton\u2019s third-leading scorer with 36 points (19 goals, 17 assists) in 64 games. He has split time on both wings this season.<\/p>\n
Harvey-Pinard\u2019s most recent NHL game came last season as a member of the Montreal Canadiens.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a worker,\u201d Muse said. \u201cWe saw it there in training camp. You\u2019ve seen it in his game in the NHL that he\u2019s had over the course of his career. You\u2019ve seen it in the way he\u2019s been playing (with Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton) all year. He\u2019s a guy who leads with his work. Just a tenacious player. Never quits on a play and he\u2019s got a good skill set to follow that up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS \u2014 After signing a two-year entry-level contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday, Jake Livanavage was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-607842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}