{"id":537530,"date":"2026-04-03T00:13:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537530\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T00:13:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:13:27","slug":"cruz-lucius-wont-sign-with-pittsburgh-penguins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537530\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruz Lucius Won’t Sign With Pittsburgh Penguins"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Penguins won\u2019t be signing one of their better collegiate prospects. According to a report from DK Pittsburgh Sports<\/a>, forward Cruz Lucius<\/a> has notified the Penguins that he won\u2019t sign his entry-level contract with the team, and will become a collegiate free agent later this summer on August 15th.<\/p>\n

Lucius, 21, recently finished his senior season at Arizona State University. He was originally drafted 124th overall by the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2022 NHL Draft, before having his signing rights traded to the Penguins in the Jake Guentzel<\/a> trade.<\/p>\n

The Lawrence, KS native burst onto the scene in his freshman season, scoring 11 goals and 34 points in 34 games, then at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his collegiate career with the Badgers the following season, scoring 13 goals and 34 points in 36 games in a nearly identical stat line.<\/p>\n

Moving to the transfer portal, Lucius landed with the Sun Devils. His junior season was unfortunately affected by injuries, resulting in two goals and 10 points across 19 games. Back to full health this year, Lucius had his best personal campaign, scoring 15 goals and 46 points in 36 games, finishing 11th in the nation in scoring, just one point behind James Hagens<\/a> of Boston College.<\/p>\n

In the report from DK Pittsburgh, they included a quote from the Penguins\u2019 President of Hockey Operations, Kyle Dubas<\/a>, saying, \u201c(Lucius and his agent) informed us that that he was not going to be signing in Pittsburgh for a few reasons that\u2019s up to him to share. It\u2019s a personal thing for him. We felt we had a great opportunity for him, and the proof is in the pudding on the development side, but players are entitled to make their decision, and I don\u2019t think we\u2019re at the position here anymore where we have to beg people to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Lucius will spend the next few months choosing where his next landing spot will be. He should get decent interest from around the league, as teams wouldn\u2019t lose much outside of a roster spot by offering him an opportunity. Fortunately, Lucius is seeking a new organization after a successful conclusion to his collegiate career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Penguins won\u2019t be signing one of their better collegiate prospects. According to a report from DK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[19808,5,4,118,1469,100,5216],"class_list":{"0":"post-537530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-cruz-lucius","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-penguins","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","14":"tag-pittsburghpenguins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116337888900407655","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537530","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=537530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}