Penguins forward Drew O'Connor finds his role

The arrival of the milestone escaped Drew O’Connor’s attention.

On Thursday, the young Pittsburgh Penguins forward appeared in his 23rd game of the season, a new career-high.

“I didn’t realize that,” O’Connor said following an optional morning skate at PPG Paints Arena before the contest. “I guess it’s a good thing. You want to play more games each year. I didn’t really know that. But I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve played more games than I did last year.”

A better thing?

Just being in the NHL.

O’Connor has been on the Pittsburgh Penguins’ roster for the better part of two and a half months since last being recalled from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League (AHL) on Dec. 14.

Not having to drive to the opposite sides of Pennsylvania — as has been the case throughout most of his three-year professional career — is something O’Connor has been far more cognizant of than any of his statistics.

“It’s nice being in one spot for a longer period of time,” said O’Connor, who has been shuffled between the NHL roster, the AHL roster or the pandemic-era taxi squad through a total of 39 different transactions in three seasons. “I’ve had a lot of up and down throughout my career. Made a lot of trips from here to Wilkes-Barre and back. So, it’s nice to be here for a longer stretch. I have more (comfort) here with the guys now at this point.

“Yeah, it is reassuring that I’ve been here for a little while now.”

And O’Connor has been in Pittsburgh for a little while despite still being exempt from waivers for any assignments to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Teams with salary cap crunches, as the Penguins have dealt with most of the season, often move players who are “immune” from waivers between the NHL and AHL rosters simply for procedural purposes.

In total, O’Connor has set career-highs in games (he is up to 25 now) as well as goals (four), assists (three) and points (seven) this season.

Those are modest totals to be certain, but O’Connor’s defensive acumen is largely what management values in him as a current component of the fourth line.

“He brings us some size, he can really skate, he’s good on the forecheck, he gets in on the forecheck,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “He creates a lot of turnovers, a lot of loose puck opportunities for us in the offensive zone. His reads are improving defensively. We’re trying to get him involved in the penalty kill in that regard. He’s making strides there just with his reads and his recognition skills away from the puck which is an important aspect of penalty killing.”

O’Connor’s forechecking led to him scoring the opening goal in a 7-3 home win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday.

After forcing Lightning forward Brayden Point into a turnover in Tampa Bay’s zone, O’Connor was rewarded with a tip-in goal a few moments later.

O’Connor has a firm grasp of what he needs to provide as a defensive entity.

“That’s a big part of it, getting on pucks, creating turnovers,” said the 24-year-old. “The (defensive) zone is huge, knowing your responsibilities. Not giving up much to (the opposition). We get a lot of (defensive) zone starts as a fourth line there. Knowing what you’re doing right off the faceoffs, being able to identify your responsibilities and just making sure that the coaches have that trust in you — that they know that you know what you’re doing — I’ve kind of learned that over the course of the last few years and especially this year that doing all those little things make a big difference.”

The departure of forward Kasperi Kapanen — jettisoned through waivers on Saturday — seemingly creates a bit more job security for O’Connor. But plenty of things can happen with the roster leading up to the trade deadline on Friday.

Given his frequent movement throughout the organization, O’Connor realizes he doesn’t have the luxury of having too much comfort if he wants to maintain his place in the lineup.

“I think recently I’ve been playing some of my better hockey that I’ve played up to this point at this level,” O’Connor said. “It’s my third year now, I have a pretty good understanding of what my role is, what I need to do to stay in the lineup and how to make an impact in games. If you’re not showing up in the scoresheet, make an impact other ways. Forechecking hard, things like that.

“Just find a way to give the coaches a reason to keep me in the lineup.”

Note: The Penguins had a scheduled day off.