Injury-free Aston-Reese would help
Penguins forward Zach Aston-Reese put one goal above all else this season: Stay healthy.
The first two years of his career, it seemed like every time Aston-Reese began to gain some traction, a trip to the injured reserve list kept him from taking the next step. A lower-body injury kept him out for more than a dozen games in 2017-18. Then in the postseason, Washington forward Tom Wilson concussed Aston-Reese and broke his jaw with an illegal hit. Last year, Aston-Reese missed 13 more games with a broken hand.
“No matter what, everything else aside, I want to
play a full 82 games and see what happens,” AstonReese told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in early February.
During a season in which so many significant players missed so much time, Aston-Reese was one of the few who stayed relatively healthy … at least for the first 57 games before a lower-body injury flared up.
As a result, he found a role on the shut-down fourth line. The trio featuring Aston-Reese, Teddy Blueger and Brandon Tanev was a hard-checking, tough-to-play-against group. Coach Mike Sullivan trusted the line enough that he frequently deployed it against the opponent’s top offensive line. They also had more defensive zone starts than any other line and were three key members of the penalty kill.
Earlier in his career, Aston-Reese got looks in a top-six role, playing
alongside Evgeni Malkin and others. But maybe his wall play and willingness to finish checks meshes better in this type of muck-andgrind, bottom-six scenario.
In terms of offensive production, Aston-Reese said himself that he would have liked to contribute more. In his senior season at Northeastern, he led Division I in goals (31) and points (63) on the way to becoming a Hobey Baker Award finalist.
He scored six goals and tallied 13 points in 57 games this year with the Penguins. Maybe there’s more offensive upside there that can be tapped into down the line as the 25-year-old’s career continues.
Or, maybe, this year is an example of the type of role Aston-Reese will continue to play.
• Defining moment: Aston-Reese scored two goals in a 7-2 rout in midJanuary in Winnipeg. The game summed up what made the Penguins successful early in the season. With Malkin, Bryan Rust and several others out with injuries, the Penguins got production up and down their lineup.
• Stat that stands out: Aston-Reese’s defensivezone start percentage was .693 this year, second only to his center, Blueger. This stat illustrates the role that he was cast in — as a shutdown defender who was counted on to step in front of shots and keep the puck out of the Penguins’ net.
• If the season resumes: While Sullivan likes to shuffle his lines to create a spark, no trio stuck together more than Aston -Reese, Blueger and Tanev. Given how much this group played together, it’s likely they would remain intact into the postseason. The one thing that could shake up this line is that an extended layoff should give several players such as Jake Guentzel, Nick Bjugstad and Dominik Simon a chance to get healthy. There’s at least a chance the new-found health could create a ripple effect that would impact the fourth line.
• Long-term outlook: Aston-Reese is signed through the 2020-21 season on a deal that pays him $1 million annually. The biggest question is: Can he show more offensive upside as his career continues? As noted previously, AstonReese was an elite goalscorer in college. It remains to be seen if that eventually will translate to the pro game.