Penguins defenseman Ryan Graves made the most out of a bad situation

It was an impressive play that led to offense.

It just didn’t lead to any recordable offense for the subject of this story.

During the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 5-3 home win against the Washington Capitals on Thursday, forward Anthony Mantha scored the hosts’ third goal of the contest by cleaning up a rebound near the crease.

But the entire sequence would not have been possible were it not for Penguins defenseman Ryan Graves.

When a puck fluttered into the air and threatened to escape the offensive zone, Graves leaned his 6-foot-5, 225-pound frame down to keep the puck on the right side of the blue line as Capitals forward Nic Dowd whizzed by. That allowed Penguins forward Blake Lizotte to chop the puck toward the near circle and Penguins forward Tommy Novak took possession.

After Novak flipped a seemingly innocent backhanded dribbler on net, goaltender Charlie Lindgren didn’t cleanly absorb the puck, which Mantha cleaned up with a backhander.

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Novak and Lizotte logged the assists on the sequence while Graves mearly got a plus.

“I think we’re going to have to look at that,” Graves quipped, in reference to how the scoring was awarded on the goal. “I don’t know about that one.”

A month prior, no one knew if Graves would make a return to the NHL.

On Oct. 4, the Penguins opted to put Graves on waivers. After no one claimed him — or his contract, which has a salary cap hit of $4.5 million and three years remaining (beyond the current season) — he was assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League (AHL) the next day.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the process of being on waivers for 24 hours is not ideal professionally.

“It’s tough,” Graves said Nov. 5 in Cranberry. “You want to be here. It’s a hard day, to be honest. You want to be in the NHL. I’ve been in the NHL for a few years in a row, and I’ve been fortunate to play in quite a few games here. I want to play a lot more.

“It’s a tough day. You take it and you move on.”

Graves took his assignment and made the most of it. Primarily stationed on the left side of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s second pairing, he posted seven points (one goal, six assists) in 10 games.

“You get a lot of opportunity to play,” Graves said. “You play in all situations. You play a lot of minutes, some of them (in situations) you might not play here. It’s nice to be able to build confidence and feel the game. And you can work, and you can make mistakes and you can keep playing because you’re going to play a lot. And you just try to build your game and build confidence.”

Some of that confidence came through working on Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s top power-play.

“Karl better watch his back,” Graves joked, in reference to Pittsburgh Penguins All-Star defenseman Erik Karlsson. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. When I’m doing that, my focus is not on how to run a first power-play (unit). It’s taking those reps to get comfortable with the puck and to be able to play with defenders close to you. To be able to create offense out of situations like that and just to feel the puck in the offensive zone, there’s something to that.”

As a result, when the left-handed Graves was recalled to the NHL roster Nov. 4, he returned with better assurances of his abilities, particularly when he has the puck.

“That was a big emphasis going down there was just take the opportunity to really play with the puck on your stick,” Graves said. “Play under pressure and get used to it. Play in those situations with a little more freedom to make mistakes. Not that you’re making them but just knowing that if it does happen, it’s not the end of the world. So, when you come back up here, you’re not going to make the mistakes and be confident to play in that situation. Trying to translate, trying to be poised with the puck, have clean breakouts, things like that. It’s a step in the right direction and I’m going to try to continue.”

Thus far, Graves has played in three NHL contests since being recalled and has posted one goal. Largely deployed on the third pairing with right-hander Connor Clifton, Graves has averaged 15:26 of ice time per contest.

“That’s a credit to the work that Ryan did going down there,” Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Muse said. “Making the best of the situation and controlling what he can control. From all those reports (from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton coaches) and everything that we saw, he set himself up there for when an opportunity presented itself.”

Going to the AHL was hardly the best set of circumstances, especially for a player signed to one of the biggest contracts — at least by length — on the payroll.

But Graves made the most out of a bad situation.

“You can either go there and ride into the sunset and just take it with a bad attitude and be miserable, or you can go there and you can try to play and work on your game and get better,” Graves said. “It’s a good league, so just go there, put in work and try to come back.”