{"id":407063,"date":"2026-01-14T11:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T11:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/407063\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T11:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T11:30:20","slug":"penguins-place-erik-karlsson-on-ir-recall-two-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/407063\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins Place Erik Karlsson On IR, Recall Two \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Penguins made a series of roster moves<\/a> this morning. Most notably, defenseman Erik Karlsson<\/a> has landed on injured reserve due to an undisclosed injury. He will miss at least two weeks of action per Seth Rorabaugh of Tribune-Review Sports<\/a>. The Penguins have recalled defenseman Ryan Graves<\/a> in place of Karlsson. Pittsburgh has also recalled winger Tristan Broz<\/a> and reassigned Rafael Harvey-Pinard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This will be Karlsson\u2019s first time missing games for the Penguins. He is riding a team-best 208-game ironman streak that dates back to Pittsburgh\u2019s trade for the former Norris Trophy winner all the way back in 2023. Karlsson has filled a major role on the Penguins\u2019 blue-line since joining the team but his importance has seemed to only rise this season. He leads Pittsburgh\u2019s defense \u2013 and ranks third on the team \u2013 with 33 points in 44 games this season. He also leads the blue-line in shots on goal (94), takeaways (21), and power-play ice time (135 minutes).<\/p>\n

That level of offense from the blue-line will be impossible for Pittsburgh to replace. Kris Letang<\/a> is the blue-line\u2019s second-highest scorer with 22 points in 44 games. He has matched a 0.5 point-per-game pace for much of the season and will certainly take on top offensive-defenseman duties in Karlsson\u2019s absence. But who steps up for Letang is less clear. Ryan Shea<\/a> has 16 points and 37 shots on goal this season, while Parker Wotherspoon<\/a> has 15 points and 43 shots on goal.<\/p>\n

Neither are known for their offense but may be called upon to fill heavy minutes with Karlsson on the shelf. Some focus will also land on Graves, who has an impressive nine points in 13 AHL games this season. That scoring hasn\u2019t risen to the NHL level just yet \u2013 Graves has five points in his last 78 NHL games dating back to last season \u2013 but an open opportunity could be what changes that. Pittsburgh could also turn towards AHL prospect Owen Pickering<\/a>, who leads the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins\u2019 defense with 15 points in 33 games. He has only appeared in four NHL games this season \u2013 setting no scoring and a minus-three. He did manage three points and a minus-five in 25 NHL games last season.<\/p>\n

The Penguins will also swap out depth forwards on the roster. Broz leads Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton in scoring with 11 goals and 24 points in 33 games. He is the only member of the team with double-digit goals this season. He made his NHL debut earlier in the year and recorded no scoring and a minus-one. Back on the NHL roster, Broz will offer a nice bit of skill and scoring upside while Pittsburgh faces injuries to Bryan Rust<\/a> and Rutger McGroarty<\/a>. Broz would likely step into the lineup over high-speed bruiser Connor Dewar<\/a>, in a bottom-six role. Meanwhile, Harvey-Pinard will return to the minors where he has already posted 13 points in 32 games.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh will be without Karlsson for at least seven games. That\u2019s a big window to try and keep their ship sailing straight, after curbing an eight-game losing streak in early December with a 7-3-0 record since December 21st. The Penguins have averaged 3.7 goals-per-game on that recent win-streak, a number that could quickly dwindle with a future Hall-of-Fame, offensive-defenseman on the sidelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Penguins made a series of roster moves this morning. Most notably, defenseman Erik Karlsson has landed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[401,642,5,402,30,4,100,6820,3638,405,7828],"class_list":{"0":"post-407063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-ahl","9":"tag-erik-karlsson","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-injury","12":"tag-newsstand","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-rafael-harvey-pinard","16":"tag-ryan-graves","17":"tag-transactions","18":"tag-tristan-broz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115893232259141304","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}