2024-25 Season in Review: Blake Lizotte

Looking at the first year in Pittsburgh that was for the guy they call Lizzo

Vitals

Player: Blake Lizotte
Born: Dec. 13, 1997 (27 years old)
Height: 5-foot-9
Weight: 173 pounds
Hometown: Lindstrom, MN, U.S.
Shoots: Left
Draft: Undrafted
2024-25 Statistics: 59 games played; 11 goals; nine assists; 20 points
Contract Status: Entering year two of a two-year, $3.7 million contract; will have a cap hit of $1.85 million for the 2025-26 season.

Monthly Splits

Yahoo! Sports

Lizotte made a great first impression in November and December with a bevy of goals and points but the magic faded soon after.

Story of the Season

It wasn’t a very promising start for Lizotte with the Penguins. The free agent addition didn’t make it to opening night before suffering his first of two concussions on the year when he was struck with an errant puck in the face while minding his own business and sitting on the bench during a preseason game.

Upon recovering from that and making his debut on October 31st, Lizotte only lasted two more weeks before another puck with his name on it again hit him in the head, this time during game action against Detroit.

“Pretty tough year in terms of injuries with the start here, especially in a new organization,” he said. “Missing the first two months of the year, essentially, was tough, but I found a way to kind of adjust as quickly as I had to on the fly. But definitely on the injury front, hope to be healthier next year.”

That was particularly under-stated, despite the multiple early bad fortune injuries Lizotte still managed to score eight goals and 12 points by Christmas break while appearing in only 20 games.

The production would dry up as the season went on, Lizotte only scored three times over his last 39 games as he mucked and grinded his way through the season, as expected, in a fourth line role.

“I’ll play what role they need me to play if it’s going to give us the best chance to win…Everybody wants to score, but not everybody wants to play defense. I think it’s important to accept the role that you’re given, and that role can change throughout the season, game to game.”

The Penguins signed Lizotte to bring some speed and defensive awareness to the team, and when he was healthy, Lizotte delivered exactly as advertised in the first season of his contract. Lizotte averaged 1:19 on the PK (5th among forwards on the team with 20+ games played). In hits/60 he was 6th (4.8), in blocked shots/60 he ranked 8th (2.3) and he ranked 5th on the team in faceoffs (347) and faceoff winning percentage (51.0%).

Lizotte plays well, he’s well-rounded and can do a little bit of everything. He was one of only two Penguin forwards to score a goal at even strength and on the power play and while penalty killing this season (Drew O’Connor being the other).

Regular season 5v5 advanced stats

Data via Natural Stat Trick. Ranking is out of 17 forwards on the team who qualified by playing a minimum of 150 minutes.

Corsi For%: 46.9 (15th)
Goals For%: 44.7 (9th)
xGF%: 43.4 (17th)
Scoring Chance%: 45.7 (16th)
High Danger Scoring Chance%: 43.9 (17th)
5v5 on-ice shooting%: 9.1 (5th)
On-ice save%: .904 (6th)
Goals/60: 0.73 (9th)
Assists/60: 0.73 (10th)
Points/60: 1.47 (10th)

Lizotte led regular bottom-six forwards with that 1.47 P/60. From a defensive role, limited time and tough starts he doesn’t pop on scoring chances or xGF%.

One interesting stat that showed how much Lizotte did (and how little help he had from teammates ) was the fact out of the 19 goals scored this season at 5v5 while he was on the ice, Lizotte personally scored eight of them and had eight more assists. He shot 18.6% at 5v5 this year (8 goals on 43 shots), the rest of the players on the ice at the same time as him only shot 6.0% (11 goals on 184 shots). That netted down to a reasonable but high 9.1% overall, but it could have been a lot better (and Lizotte could have padded his stats with more assists) if only his linemates had shown more finishing ability.

In his LA King days, Lizotte was able to generate some nice chance-assist and outright assist totals with his passing, but in Pittsburgh that wasn’t to be. By far his most common linemates: Noel Acciari and Matt Nieto (not far behind: Anthony Beauvillier and Michael Bunting playing down the lineup when on cold streaks).

Charts n’at

Via Advanced Hockey Stats and NHL Edge

Every team would love a fourth liner like this; capable defensively and has some finishing ability to pop in some production. If Lizotte was 6’2” instead of 5’8”, he’d be on the short lists of best fourth liners in the NHL. Instead, he remains something of a quiet secret for being good at his job without much accolades to accompany it.

The skating stats would have looked even better without missing over a quarter of the season.

Lizotte was one of the younger Penguin forwards, and probably their fastest this season too. He generates a lot more high-end speed than just about anyone in the lineup.

Highlights

Questions to ponder

Lizotte has scored 39 goals in the last four seasons and in a very consistent manner (10, 11, 7, 11). Depending on health, he’s likely to score 20-30 points, be a good PK option and is capable of playing center. Given his reasonable $1.85 million cap hit, the question for him are more external than anything else. He can be a steady, competent and good fourth line player with a very defined ceiling. That can be of use to a contender. The Penguins aren’t that, so the timing of when he might be traded and what the team can get back loom large moving ahead. Another question: in many ways Lizotte slipped into the lower line, defensive center role that allowed the team to move Lars Eller. Who is going to be next to fill that role when and if Lizotte is no longer a member of the Pens? Tristan Broz doesn’t play that style, Vasily Ponomarev could be a possibility if he continues to progress but there is no obvious replacement already built in for Lizotte.

Ideal 2025-26

You always wonder about smaller player’s health. Lizotte’s injuries this past year had little to do with his size but at 5’9” and 173 he’s one of the lightest and slightest players in the NHL today. Ideally he can stay healthy, his play on the ice is a known entity by this point with consistent but limited production and good wheels and hockey mind to get to the right places at the right time away from the puck. An ideal season might see Lizotte get hot again offensively and get traded to get the Penguins another decent return (perhaps a second round pick by virtue of playing an in-demand center position?) and set himself up for a showcase with a good team on playoff run in 2026 that parlays into gaining himself another nice, lucrative, multi-year contract in the summer of 2026.

Bottom line