Drive to the Net: Orpik gets assist on St. Ivany's development

Jack St. Ivany is solidifying himself as an NHL regular with his steady, defensive play and physicality.

It makes a lot of sense, given that his defense coach in college was Brooks Orpik.

St. Ivany, 24, began his college career at Yale in 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic hit at the end of his sophomore season, and the Ivy League schools made the decision to cancel the 2020-21 hockey season as a result. Not wanting to miss full season of hockey and miss out on a year of development, St. Ivany made the decision to transfer to Boston College for his junior and senior seasons. In December of St. Ivany's junior season, Boston College brought on an alum in Orpik as an assistant coach focusing on the defensemen.

“He’s got a great teaching aura about him,” Boston College head coach Jerry York said of Orpik at the time in the team's announcement. “He can explain things very well, the little nuances of playing defense at a high, high level. All our players want to go to the next level, so they understand this is a great segue into that.”

That was certainly the case for St. Ivany over his two seasons with Orpik.

"He was awesome," St. Ivany told me this week of Orpik. "Whether it'd be before practice, after practice, he was taking us working on skills. To have a player with that experience, won Stanley Cups and plays a similar game to me, it was really cool, I think a great experience for me to grow from."

Someone of Orpik's stature might be intimidating -- over 1,000 games played in the NHL, two Stanley Cups, and an Olympic silver medalist, plus an NCAA title with Boston College as a player himself. But St. Ivany found Orpik to be "laid back, a player's coach" and extremely approachable. 

"I think the biggest thing that I learned from him was just in college, just appreciating all the moments," St. Ivany said. "Because there's not many times you have the opportunity to play for a school and your classmates."

On the ice, one of the biggest things St. Ivany picked up from Orpik was physical play, and the intricacies needed to do it effectively. That's what Orpik and St. Ivany worked on in those pre- and post-practice skills sessions.

"He was really good at just talking about body positioning and boxing guys out and being strong in front," St. Ivany said. "Plus little stick details that you can do to help improve on those things."

St. Ivany said that during film sessions, York showed the team a video "from the playoffs where (Orpik) had like, four or five hits in a span of 15 seconds. The crowd's going crazy."

To be fair: St. Ivany didn't grow up a Penguins fan, so he's not up on the lore, and he was all of eight years old when that moment happened. I told him that what he was describing is usually called "The Shift," and it was from the 2008 Stanley Cup Final against the Red Wings:

"Yeah, that's all-time," St. Ivany marveled.

Now, St. Ivany is all of 10 games into his NHL career. He's not throwing hits or blocking shots or defending like Orpik was at his peak. But he's certainly showing a lot of beginnings of a similar style.

St. Ivany records hits at a higher rate than any Penguins defenseman this season at 10.26 per 60 minutes of ice time:

That rate of 10.26 is almost a full hit more than the No. 2 leader of John Ludvig at 9.42, and a big leap from the No. 3 spot of the traded Chad Ruhwedel at 7.12. From there, it's a massive, massive drop off to the next guys in Marcus Pettersson and Kris Letang at 3.76.

That's not including moments like these, when St. Ivany uses his physicality to box opponents out of the Penguins' crease:

When it comes to blocking shots, St. Ivany is blocking shots at a rate of 5.13 per 60 minutes, good enough for the third-best on the team -- right behind Pettersson at 5.16, and Ryan Graves at 6.63. And he's eating those pucks at some important times too, like when he blocked three shots in less than a minute to protect a lead on a 4-on-6 situation in the Penguins' 5-4 win over the Lightning:

"He's played really well," Sidney Crosby told me Wednesday of his impressions of St. Ivany. "Solid. You know, he looks really poised, especially early on in his career here. He's a guy that plays with a lot of confidence, a lot of poise, can skate well and I think he's just been really steady."

Kyle Dubas mentioned after the trade deadline that one of the reasons Ruhwedel was traded was to free up a spot for St. Ivany. That was part of the stated goal to get younger, but St. Ivany didn't get a spot in the lineup because he's 24. He got a spot because he earned it,

"Throughout the rest of the lineup, you can get younger, but they have to be better players that can add something to the team and help improve the team," Dubas said on his radio appearance with Penguins play-by-play broadcaster Josh Getzoff on Wednesday. "It's on me because I'm the one who says we need to get younger, but we need to get younger, and we need to continue to get better. And then we need to develop all of our people -- younger, older alike to help them maintain or reach their potential."

St. Ivany made the Penguins' defense corps younger. He also made them better, too, which is what actually matters. He adds things like a layer of physicality, the ability to clear the crease that were lacking before.

Given that Crosby's one of the few players still around who played with and against Orpik, I mentioned to him that Orpik was St. Ivany's defense coach and asked him if he sees any early similarities in St. Ivany's young career yet.

"I think Ivy's got a really good stick, and he's probably not as physical as Orps," Crosby said. "But I mean, if that's his trajectory, then he's on a really good path."