Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins rookie defenseman Chase Pietila quietly went about his business and grew his game at the pro level this season.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old right-handed shooting blueliner joined Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton last spring following his final season of college hockey at Michigan Tech, appearing in three AHL games last year before spending several weeks with the Penguins\u2019 ECHL affiliate Wheeling Nailers \u2014 playing in 14 games including five ECHL playoff games.<\/p>\n
The early returns indicate getting a taste of pro hockey last year paid off for Pietila, who is a regular for the Penguins this season and his reliable play put him in position for a larger role in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cChase has done a great job coming in as a young guy,\u201d Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton coach Kirk MacDonald said. \u201c(He) competes really hard. He makes really good decisions with the puck, his offensive reads are good and he\u2019s fearless. \u201cHe\u2019s willing to block a shot, take a hit, make a hit. He does a lot of really good things for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
While a simple breeze through the stats indicates he appeared on the scoresheet just once in his past 18 games, his contributions in the defensive zone \u2014 winning puck battles, boxing out opponents around the net front and getting the puck up ice to transition to offense \u2014 result in goals.<\/p>\n
Entering the Penguins\u2019 final four games, Pietila (+26) and fellow rookie defender Finn Harding (+31) are far and away the clubhouse leaders in the plus\/minus category.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I think plus-minus is a weird stat. For the most part, it\u2019s kind of like it doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d MacDonald said. \u201cBut then when you see guys like that so far on one side of it, then it\u2019s like, OK, well now you\u2019re on the ice on the right side of it all the time. That\u2019s a little bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n
All in all, it\u2019s been a positive experience for Pietila in his rookie season, playing well on a team that\u2019s playing well and positioned for a postseason run heading into the final two weekends of the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been good. I feel like I\u2019ve been learning a lot, so it\u2019s been a lot of fun,\u201d Pietila said. \u201cI mean, there\u2019s a lot to take away from all the older guys. They teach us a lot. I feel like I\u2019ve been kind of settling in, finding my game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pietila had no shortage of veteran defenders to learn from this season with Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton. He began the season paired with longtime NHL defenseman Ryan Graves, while also playing a considerable stretch of games alongside another defenseman with NHL experience in Alex Alexeyev.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey teach us a lot, and they\u2019re super easy to play with. I mean, they\u2019ve had that experience. They know what to expect,\u201d Pietila said. \u201cYou can kind of pick their brain and learnfrom every game. It\u2019s nice being able to have that person playing with you and teaching you and helping you throughout the season. It means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pietila\u2019s two-way game isn\u2019t an overly flashy one right now, but you can already see a solid foundation in place for his game to develop and evolve as he continues to hone different aspects.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just being a pro, and then not used to playing this many games it\u2019s been good being able to kind of just learn how to adapt and develop my game to a pro style,\u201d Pietila said. \u201c(I just want to) play hard, play physical and just play hard every single night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins rookie defenseman Chase Pietila quietly went about his business and grew his game at the pro…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1902,178,180,179,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-163669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-penguins","9":"tag-scranton","10":"tag-scranton-headlines","11":"tag-scranton-news","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}