Penguins A to Z: Even if he was a throw-in, Colton Sceviour can be useful
As the NHL prepares for a new season scheduled to start in mid-January, the Tribune-Review will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 48 individuals under NHL contract with the organization, from mid-level prospect Niclas Almari to high-profile trade acquisition Jason Zucker.
Colton Sceviour
Position: Center
Shoots: Right
Age: 31
Height: 6-foot
Weight: 190 pounds
2019-20 NHL statistics: 69 games, 16 points (six goals, 10 assists)
Contract: Third year of a three-year contract with a salary cap hit of $1.2 million. Pending unrestricted free agent in 2022
Acquired: Trade, Sept. 24, 2020
Last season: The 2019-20 Panthers were a pretty unremarkable team. They spent most of the campaign on the outside looking in on the postseason picture. Were it not for the NHL’s pause in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic that led to a jury-rigged postseason format in August allowing entry to 24 teams, the Panthers would have likely not been a playoff team.
Yet, they had eight players appear in all 69 of the team’s regular season games before things were halted in mid-March. That’s an impressive total, especially when you consider the Penguins only had two players play in every one of their regular season contests last season.
Sceviour was one of the not-so-elite eight for the Panthers. Averaging 13:15 of ice time per contest, Sceviour largely did what he’s done throughout his nine-year career, which included a stint with the Dallas Stars.
That’s to say he played a sturdy but somewhat inert game befitting a fourth-line forward. Used in a variety of roles, Sceviour distinguished himself as a penalty killer, logging 2:30 of short-handed ice-time per contest, the second-highest total on the Panthers. He also added the occasional offense, largely by going to the net.
One of the keys to staying in the lineup for Sceviour was his discipline. Despite appearing in every game and playing a fairly hard, aggressive style, he only recorded six penalty minutes.
Sceviour’s run of avoiding healthy scratches came to an end in the postseason when he was omitted from the Panthers’ lineup for their final two games of the postseason before they were eliminated by the New York Islanders.
Several weeks later, Sceviour was dealt to the Penguins to help facilitate a much larger exchange of players featuring defenseman Mike Matheson coming to Pittsburgh and forward Patric Hornqvist going to the Florida. Sceviour was included in the deal, in part, to make the math work on Florida’s end.
The future: While he did miss the first day of training camp to attend to the birth of a child, Sceviour has settled into the fourth line during practices and scrimmages at PPG Paints Arena.
With incumbent forward Zach Aston-Reese still recuperating from offseason shoulder surgery, Sceviour appears set to open the 2020-21 season in his role on the left wing of the bottom line. Possessing the proverbial high motor, Sceviour is a relentless skater who can’t afford to take a shift off if he’s to stay in the lineup.
Capable of playing all three forward positions, he is one of the relatively few players on the roster who can take a right-handed faceoff. Considering how uncertain this season could be in terms of players potentially being unavailable due to medical concerns, Sceviour could get used in a variety of ways.
Even if he arrived in Pittsburgh as a throw-in, Sceviour can be quite useful to the Penguins in 2020-21.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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