David Gustafsson’s first stay with the Pittsburgh Penguins ended before it ever reached the ice.
On Saturday, the club announced it had activated center Ben Kindel from injured reserve and, to clear a roster spot, placed Gustafsson on waivers with a non-roster designation.
The move came the same night Pittsburgh also welcomed Andrei Kuzmenko back from personal leave for a game against Montreal, leaving the 26-year-old Swede as the odd man out in a suddenly crowded forward group.
The timing is particularly abrupt. Pittsburgh acquired Gustafsson from Winnipeg this offseason in exchange for defenseman Jack St. Ivany, a swap framed as a fresh start for both players.
Gustafsson survived training camp and earned a spot on the opening roster, only to be waived without appearing in a single game for his new team.
Kindel, who had been out with a lower-body injury suffered in the preseason, is expected to miss just one contest after a retroactive injured-reserve placement.
The 19-year-old finished last season with 17 goals and 18 assists in 77 games and finished ninth in Calder Trophy voting, so the organization had little reason to keep him sidelined once he was ready.
Gustafsson has been in the NHL since the 2019-20 campaign, when he broke in as a teenager with the Jets after being taken 60th overall in 2018.
Across parts of six seasons, in Winnipeg he appeared in 149 games, almost entirely in a fourth-line role that averaged under nine minutes a night.
The production matched the usage: six goals and 14 assists. His first NHL goal came on Nov. 27, 2019, against San Jose, during a 22-game debut season.
The years that followed were a familiar shuttle between the Jets and the American Hockey League. He never locked down a regular scoring role, and last season he did not play in the NHL at all, spending the year with Manitoba and recording 10 goals and 22 assists in 49 games.
That AHL showing was enough to interest Pittsburgh, which signed him to a one-year, two-way contract worth $850,000 at the NHL level, with a total guaranteed payout of half that amount.
He will be eligible for unrestricted free agency next summer. Clubs have until 1 p.m. CT to claim him. If he clears, he will report to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and try to force his way back onto the NHL roster as an in-season recall.
For a player whose career has been built on depth minutes and organization flexibility, the waiver is not an unfamiliar place to land.
It is, though, a quick verdict on a change of scenery that never got a chance to play out. Pittsburgh’s forward picture shifted the moment Kindel was healthy again, and Gustafsson, still waiting for his first shift in black and gold, was the one asked to make room.
