The Pittsburgh Penguins have re-signed Zach Aston-Reese. They did so right before the team and player were scheduled for an arbitration hearing today. Aston-Reese received a two-year deal that will pay him 1.0M per season.
The Penguins have re-signed forward Zach Aston-Reese to a two-year contract. The one-way contract runs through the 2020.21 campaign and carries an average annual value of $1 million.
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) July 22, 2019
Details: https://t.co/z5MkcqLXZL pic.twitter.com/fyQu3NZOas
This is a decent enough depth signing from a value standpoint. Aston-Reese is a useful depth player who has strong defensive numbers
Zachary Aston-Reese (2x1m extension with Pittsburgh) is a solid forward who contributes a lot of defence. pic.twitter.com/8lMDown3SE
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) July 22, 2019
Aston-Reese only has 57 NHL games to his credit at this point. He was on the wrong end of a Tom Wilson cheap shot which broke his jaw. In his 59 career games he has 12 goals and 23 points. Last year he played 43 games and had a 1.81 points per 60 at 5v5. His 12 career goals in only 59 games is half of Brandon Tanev's career total in 30% of Tanev's games played (195).
I'm not hear to say Aston-Reese is an amazing depth player, but I am here to say the Penguins are getting way more value on a two-year deal worth only 1M per season in Aston-Reese than they are with Brandon Tanev at 3.5M for six years.
With the signing the Penguins are now over the salary cap
With Aston-Reese signed to a $1M AAV contract by the Pittsburgh #Penguins, we now show the club with a cap hit of $81.657M ($157k above the upper limit) with a roster of 23 (13F 8D 2G)
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) July 22, 2019
One RFA remains:
D Marcus Petterssonhttps://t.co/GB8Nl3zjUB pic.twitter.com/HihN2Zq4IT
We know there are trades to come, but it doesn't change the fact that Pittsburgh has way too many bloated depth contracts. These contracts were self-inflicted mistakes and will now force the general managers hand in order to be cap compliant.
This team could have been in a position to land a really good player like Jake Gardiner which would be the type of addition to propel the Penguins back into contenders. For right now they are pretenders.
Thanks for reading!