Coming into this season, it was easy to put a pin on Zach Aston-Reese and label him as a player whose role was set in stone. The veteran utility forward did his job again for the Blue Jackets this season.
Acquired by the team off of waivers just before the start of last season, Zach was brought in to provide some veteran depth for a team that had been using a string of call-ups at the end of the prior season. He did exactly that.
He got into 79 games last year, scoring 6 goals, 17 points, 27 penalty minutes and a -15 rating. His two-way game gave this team good fourth line minutes, which ultimately earned him a one-year extension to remain in Columbus.
That made perfect sense. GM Don Waddell is big on keeping his young players out of the NHL while they continue to develop, and having a guy like Aston-Reese around definitely helps do that.
Having a bigger (more mature) body in the bottom-six is definitely preferable to sticking a prospect in there and limiting their minutes. Zach is a smart player, good on the defensive side of the puck, and with just enough physicality to hold serve against the opposition's tougher bottom six players.
While he doesn't light up the scoresheet, he's a reliable player that can eat up minutes against bottom of the lineup competition, and fill in on the penalty kill. Essentially, he's not out there to score goals. He's out there to cancel out the opposition and play low event minutes.
This season, he did that again, but the competition around him made it more difficult for him to get into the lineup. Which is exactly what the Blue Jackets needed to happen. As a result however, ZAR got into just 27 NHL games; scoring 1 goal, 5 points, 12 penalty minutes, and a -1 rating.
By season's end, he was playing with the Cleveland Monsters. As you would expect, against lower level competition, his offense popped a little bit more. He scored 8 goals and 16 points in 27 AHL games, and is currently a key piece of that team as they push for a Calder Cup.
It's pretty easy to grade a player like this, because the expectations aren't too high or too low. The quiet veteran did his job again this season, pretty much exactly as we would have expected. It's an safe "C" grade.
What happens next?
Zach Aston-Reese does not have a contract beyond this season, and I think it's very likely that he does not earn one with the Blue Jackets organization. After the team added Danton Heinen in a mid-season trade, ZAR was passed over on the depth chart.
For that reason, I don't see the team extending him this summer. There are going to be a lot of options, many younger, on this already crowded roster. I can see Zach getting a chance elsewhere, but it's also possible that he hangs up the skates and moves on to something different. I could see him being a coach, somewhere down the line. We'll see.
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