Had Bob Motzko not come calling at the last minute, Jon Lizotte might be back home in North Dakota right now, planning for the next Fourth of July.
In 2015, Lizotte was playing out his final few weeks of eligibility in the North American Hockey League, a Tier II junior league. He had solid stats for the Minot Minotauros but hadn’t heard from a single school about a scholarship.
Lizotte being nearly old enough to legally drink was surely a factor.
At that point, the blue-liner figured his future would be in fireworks.
His parents founded Lizotte Fireworks in Grand Forks, N.D., two decades ago. It is a seasonal business, one that keeps the family in a frenzy for two weeks every summer. Lizotte has “kind of ran it for them” since he was 16 or 17.
“We’re only allowed to sell for nine days out of the year,” Lizotte, now 24, said Wednesday. “It’s in a warehouse we use for storage. We start around June 27. We do that until July 4 and tear it all down. People come down from Canada and all over. Anywhere close that doesn’t have fireworks, they head over.”
With another Fourth on the horizon, Lizotte finally got his lifeline.
Motzko called, offering Lizotte a chance to walk on at St. Cloud State. Lizotte would be the last guy on the team and little else would be guaranteed.
“I knew that you have to earn everything,” he said. “You just need an opportunity to showcase what you have. I kind of stepped into the role and things happened so that I got an opportunity. And it kind of just went from there.”
It sure did. Four years later, Lizotte is participating in his first NHL training camp. He won’t stick around too much longer. But he is already exceeding expectations here, too, making him someone to monitor in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
An injury opened the door for Lizotte to play right away at St. Cloud State. He stayed in the lineup for the Huskies, who won a conference championship that season. The rugged, stay-at-home defender would suit up for 147 games for the program. He scored 10 goals with 36 assists and a plus-47 rating.
Lizotte credited the staff at St. Cloud State, from his two coaches in Motzko and Brett Larson to the rink staff that let him in the building to skate and train, for helping him to develop into the person and the player he is today.
“I had a great career and a fun time at St. Cloud State. I met a lot of great people there,” he said. “They do everything top-notch. Every year that I was there, we were contenders, a team talked about nationally. To be able to do that, you’ve got to be doing something right.”
Last offseason, the Penguins invited Lizotte to their prospect development camp on a tryout basis then kept tabs on him from afar during his senior year.
“It gives them an opportunity for them to show what they can do,” coach Mike Sullivan said when asked about that process. “I think it’s a great way for us to discover players. We can learn more about them. They can learn more about us. And good things can potentially materialize. So it’s a win-win for both.”
After the Huskies got knocked out of the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Penguins asked Lizotte to skate for their American Hockey League club.
“It happened real quick,” he said. “I didn’t ask my agent too many questions.”
Lizotte had a goal and an assist in three games while playing on an amateur tryout agreement. In June, the Penguins signed him to an AHL contract.
Lizotte was not on Pittsburgh’s initial training camp roster. But after he held his own while skating on their third defensive pair at the Prospects Challenge in Buffalo earlier this month, the Penguins invited him to their NHL camp.
“He’s had a strong camp so far. He had a strong rookie camp in Buffalo,” Sullivan said, adding, “He skates well. He’s strong. He’s moved the puck well.”
Pretty high praise for a fireworks salesman.
Lizotte says he’s “getting better every day” by battling Sidney Crosby and other NHLers at training camp. But he is realistic about his future. His goal is to maintain a regular role in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton this season and go from there.
“I just need to play my game,” Lizotte said. “That’s what got me noticed. There’s no reason to change too much. There’s obviously areas I can improve, but I don’t want to stray too far from what makes me a good player and a good teammate. I hope to perform well and we’ll see where it takes me.”
Matt Vensel: mvensel@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mattvensel.
First Published: September 18, 2019, 7:08 p.m.
