Penguins A to Z: Will Reilly will try to prove he's not irrelevant
While the NHL is on hold due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Tribune-Review will offer Penguins A to Z, a player-by-player look at all 54 individuals under NHL contract with the organization, from mid-level prospect Niclas Almari to high-profile trade acquisition Jason Zucker.
Player: Will Reilly
Position: Defenseman
Shoots: Right
Age: 22
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 195 pounds
2019-20 NCAA statistics: 34 games, 22 points (eight goals, 14 assists)
Contract: Two-year entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $806,250, which begins in 2020-21. Pending restricted free agent 2022.
Acquired: Draft, seventh round (No. 217 overall), June 24, 2017
This season: Will Reilly is bound to always be the answer to a trivia question.
As the last overall pick in the 2017 draft, Reilly will be identified partially by that designation no matter what he accomplishes as a professional hockey player.
While the NHL doesn’t celebrate “Mr. Irrelevant” with the grandeur the NFL does, it is a tag that follows any NHLer no matter what success he enjoys.
A perennial 20-goal scorer like Penguins forward Patric Hornqvist? Did you know he was the last overall pick of the 2005 draft?
A borderline NHLer such as Penguins defenseman Zach Trotman? Oh yeah, he was the last overall pick in 2010.
As for Reilly, he was very relevant for Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute (RPI) over the past four seasons. In 139 career games for the Engineers, Reilly had 68 points (22 goals, 46 assists).
As a senior in 2019-20, Reilly served as RPI’s captain and finished second in overall scoring and first in power-play scoring with nine points (four goals, five assists). Also a key component to RPI’s penalty kill, he led his team with 27 blocked shots. His play earned him a selection to the Eastern College Athletic Conference’s second team.
(Video courtesy Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute)
Before the NCAA postponed play in early-March, Reilly had led the Engineers to fourth place in the ECAC and a first-round bye in that conference’s postseason tournament.
Had the AHL’s season not been halted March 12, Reilly likely would have signed an amateur tryout contract with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to finish the 2019-20 campaign.
The future: Reilly presumably will open the 2020-21 season with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton but will face stiff competition for playing time as fellow defensemen Niclas Almari, Kevin Czuczman, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Jon Lizotte (AHL deal), Cam Lee, Trotman and David Warsofsky are signed to contracts that could have them in the AHL next season. An assignment to the Wheeling Nailers to get some playing time in the ECHL is always a possibility.
Overall, Reilly has the base elements to be a defenseman desired by most teams in the NHL of 2020, particularly the Penguins. That’s to say he’s the proverbial “puck-moving” defenseman as a good skater and someone who can create offense. And as a right-handed defenseman — a precious commodity at all levels of hockey — he is a pretty aggressive and accurate shooter having led the Engineers with an average of 2.53 shots per game this past season.
It remains to be seen how he will handle life as a professional, but he’s taken the first step to prove he’s not irrelevant.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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