The Penguins (and every other team in the league) passed on claiming John Ludvig off waivers on Thursday. He cleared waivers and is now eligible to be re-assigned to Colorado's AHL affiliate.

Because no other team put in a claim for Ludvig, the Penguins could have put in a claim and sent him directly to the AHL without further waivers. However, doing so would have put them at their maximum 50 contracts. They also would not have known if they were the only claim until after the waiver period passed at 2 p.m. -- had they claimed Ludvig but not been the only claim, Ludvig would have been stuck on the NHL roster until he went on waivers again. That had the potential to make things temporarily messy, as the Penguins were at the 23-man roster limit, and so would have had to wait another day to recall Joel Blomqvist.

The Penguins initially did want to keep Ludvig as defense depth when they tried assigning him to the AHL out of camp. But in the time since, Owen Pickering has emerged as an actual NHL defenseman, and P.O Joseph was re-acquired. Coupled with a number of potential recall options already in Wilkes-Barre when healthy, the benefits of reclaiming Ludvig didn't outweigh the downsides.