Aston-Reese rewarded with two-goal game
On Tuesday against Ottawa, Sullivan again decided to deploy him with Crosby. During a shift in the second period, Conor Sheary won a battle by the Pens bench and got the puck over to Crosby.
Aston-Reese started charging to the net, where Crosby fluttered a pass to the rookie winger and he slipped a shot under Sens goalie Mike Condon's glove for the first goal of his NHL career, following it up with an epic celebration.
"It was pretty special," Aston-Reese said. "It was almost like a release, it was really exciting to get that. I was just trying to back the D off and give Sid some room there. He just dished it into an area. Found my stick and just threw it on net."
To have Crosby's name on the game puck is something that put a big smile on Aston-Reese's face.
"It's pretty easy playing with him," he said. "You don't even really need to call for the puck, he just knows where you are. Just as long as you keep your feet moving and find open spots, he'll get you the puck."
With just over a minute left to play and Ottawa's net empty, Crosby found Brian Dumoulin for a cross-ice pass, who banked it off the boards to Aston-Reese at the far blue line. He fired it into the cage for his first career multi-goal game in the Pens' 6-3 win over the Sens at PPG Paints Arena.
"That was a really nice indirect pass by Dumoulin there at the end," Aston-Reese said. "Had the open net, didn't want to miss that one."
Even the rookie was aware that Bryan Rust had recently missed an empty net by clanging a pass from Crosby off the crossbar. "I heard someone saying he was like 1-for-12 in college. I didn't want to follow in his footsteps there," Aston-Reese joked.
Aston-Reese's dad Will, who is from Crafton, was able to arrive two hours before puck drop ahead of Friday's 4-3 shootout loss to Dallas, where Zach recorded his first career NHL point - an assist - on Riley Sheahan's first-period goal.
He stayed for the rest of the Dads' Trip, while some more of Zach's family members had been in attendance for the game against the Devils since they live in nearby Staten Island. No one was in attendance tonight, but if that assist had been a goal, Aston-Reese said that might have been different.
"I figured if I scored when they were there they'd have to come all the time, so I just waited until I was all alone," Aston-Reese said with a laugh.
Overall, Aston-Reese finished with 14:30 of ice time in his fifth career game, compared to 6:24 in his first. He feels like things are starting to make more sense on the ice and he's able to make plays and react to them quicker, and the coaches are rewarding him with a bigger role because of that.
"He's a really solid two-way player," Sullivan said. "He's strong on the puck, he's good on the wall, he goes to the net. He has good awareness away from the puck, he's sound defensively. We can use him killing penalties. I think he's getting better and better with every game that he plays. He's getting a little bit more confidence, I think he's hanging onto pucks more as he gets a little bit more confident. We've really liked every game that he's played, he seems to be getting better with each game that he plays. Because of that fact, his ice time is going to grow."
Aston-Reese affirmed that his confidence is growing, but not his complacency.
"(A game like that) definitely raises it a little bit, but you can't get complacent with that," he said after the game. "There's a really good team coming in two days, so I'll enjoy it tonight but the next few days got to turn the page and look to the future."
