Resurgent Aston-Reese finds his feisty side
In May, a few days after the Washington Capitals knocked the Penguins out of the playoffs, Zach Aston-Reese took a break from slurping down soup, smoothies and ice cream to clean out his locker at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. The talk inevitably turned to the illegal Tom Wilson hit that, well, literally knocked Aston-Reese out of those playoffs.
“I’m moving past all that and those emotions,” the young forward, his face still swollen after surgery to fix his broken jaw, said of the hit that also gave him a concussion.
As it turns out, he was unable to move past it completely until a few weeks ago.
Aston-Reese admits now that he was tentative during training camp and throughout most of the preseason — not ideal for a player whose game is predicated on peskiness.
“Coming back from injury is always tough, especially after a big hit like that,” Aston-Reese said after practice Monday in Cranberry. “You don’t want to be secondguessing yourself when you’ve got the puck or be scared to take a puck because your head’s down.”
Aston-Reese said the Penguins eventually pulled him aside to see what was up.
“I think I started to get it back that last preseason game against Columbus,” Aston-Reese said. “I did have a talk with guys on the
staff about having that chippiness to my game and I tried to bring it in Columbus. It was too little, too late for me with that.”
The 24-year-old was among the team’s final cuts, unsurprising considering he was competing with other forwards with oneway contracts. That didn’t deter him from making a case to stay. So, yeah, he was a little bummed out.
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan and assistant general manager Bill Guerin, who oversees the team’s AHL affiliate in WilkesBarre/Scranton, explained the decision and told him what he needed to work on. Aston-Reese says he “agreed with everything they had to say.”
“I wasn’t bitter,” he said. “Going down that first day of practice, I was ready to work.”
Garrett Wilson, the Baby Penguins captain until he and Aston-Reese were recalled last week and inserted on NHL team’s fourth line, said that AstonReese “didn’t pout, didn’t drag his bottom lip” there. Instead, he practiced hard and played even harder.
Aston-Reese scored six goals, three of them on a hat trick in the last of his 11 games in the AHL, and added three assists. He also racked up 18 penalty minutes, which usually isn’t a good thing. But in the case of Aston-Reese, the Penguins were pleased to see that.
“Going down to Wilkes, I didn’t waste any time with that,” he said. “My first game, I scored a goal and almost fought a guy after the puck went in the net. So just from day one, I knew what needed to be fixed. I knew it was more of a mental thing than physical.”
Wilson could feel a change happening, too, as Aston-Reese got his swagger back.
“Anytime you have an injury like he had [in May], you’re a little tentative coming back,” Wilson said. “You could definitely see his last few games down there [that] he was really bringing it, playing physical, getting in on the forecheck and mucking it up out front.”
It just so happened that those qualities were what Sullivan felt the big-league club lacked on its fourth line. So he hasn’t eased Aston-Reese back into NHL action.
Aston-Reese averaged a little more than 10 minutes per game in his first two games back with the Penguins. Sullivan has given him Bryan Rust’s spot on the penalty kill. And he has used Aston-Reese, Wilson and center Matt Cullen for key defensive zone faceoffs.
Then, at practice Monday, Aston-Reese was parked in front of the net on the second power play.
He would like to have “a little more poise offensively when it comes to creating scoring chances and putting them in the net.” But he is pleased with how his line has fared.
So are the Penguins, who first and foremost want energy from the fourth line.
“There’s plenty of guys that are going to put the puck into the net,” AstonReese said. “I think playing in the offensive zone and not giving anything up right now, being a spark plug and give the team energy and life, that’s my role right now. And I’m happy to do it.”
He added: “Just my overall game and chippiness has come a long way since the preseason.”
If Aston-Reese can keep bringing it, he might just stick with the Penguins this time around.