There was a time in Marty Reasoner’s life when he harbored dreams and had goals for his hockey career. Actually his hockey dream was that he would have goals, lots of them, like the guys he grew up watching on TV.

“I grew up in the ’80s, the Oilers were a big team, Wayne Gretzky, [Mark] Messier and those guys. I always liked to watch Pat LaFontaine play. In Buffalo he was great,” said the native of Honeoye Falls, in upstate New York, who will turn 32 on Feb. 26. “They were kind of my heroes growing up.”

Reasoner was living his hockey dream in college, playing three superb seasons with Boston College, including a junior year that saw him lead Hockey East in goals (33) and points (73). He chose to forego his senior year to join the St. Louis Blues, who had drafted him two years earlier in the first round of the 1996 NHL Entry Draft (14th overall).

But after three seasons that saw him net only 17 goals in 95 games, Reasoner was traded to Edmonton. It was there that a member of those great Oilers teams he grew up idolizing set him straight, derailing his childhood dreams but, at the same time, putting his career on the right track.

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“[Head Coach] Craig MacTavish told me ‘You have to find a way to make yourself valuable. You have to give me a reason to put you on the ice. If you’re not scoring you have to be responsible,’” he recalled. “It evolved into where I became a guy that was counted on defensively and kind of made a career out of it. Obviously everybody would like to score 50 goals but sometimes that’s just not the case. You have to find a role and accept it and that’s what I did.”

Reasoner has done it very well, as evidenced by his staying power in the league. He’s finishing up his 10th season, and played in his 500th game on Dec. 26, against Carolina at Philips Arena.

The ability to re-invent himself, in this case rediscover himself, has been crucial in the resuscitation of a career many thought was over after not being re-signed by Edmonton after last season.

The Thrashers gave Reasoner a shot, signing him last July 17, and they’re glad they did.

Playing under new coach John Anderson and a new system, Reasoner has returned to form as a dependable defensive forward. Despite missing the last three games due to illness and then the birth of his first child, Reasoner leads all Thrashers with a +4 rating.

He’s also rediscovered his scoring touch. He has eight goals and 17 points and is on pace for a career-high in goals (his current high is 11, scored last season which matched his 2002-03 output) and his best scoring season since ’02-03, when he had 11 goals and 31 points). Reasoner has scored four points (1G, 3A) over his last eight games and has been practicing with offensively-minded Rich Peverley and Slava Kozlov in an effort to boost Atlanta's scoring while also bringing some defensive responsibility to one of the team's top scoring lines.

Part of Reasoner's success comes from the great respect he has for head coach John Anderson and his system.

“He has a great mind for hockey and he knows the game really well,” said the center, who is seven points away from 200 for his career. “For us it’s just a matter of grasping his system, sticking with it, believing in it and playing it because when we play his system we have success. It’s when we go out on our own and do our own thing that we have breakdowns.”

Reasoner has been a key part of the Thrashers’ resurgence on the penalty kill, which struggled for most of the season, but has been solid since the All-Star break when assistant coach Randy Cunneyworth was tasked with turning the penalty kill around. The unit killed off 19 straight shorthanded situations between January 20 and Feb. 6 and Reasoner's absence was evident over the last three games as the opposition scored on three of 12 power-play opportunities.

“I’m a guy who is supposed to be a checking guy, a penalty kill guy and that’s been a weak point for us. I take that personally and it is something that we really want to improve on,” he said. “At the beginning of the year we were all on a different page. We’re starting to come together."

“The biggest thing is getting everyone on the same page,” he added. “There are four guys out there at a time and it’s reading off of each other and knowing where the other guys are going to be to support you. We’re really trying to focus in on tightening up. We have been better as of late and we’re hoping that is going to be a big thing to help turn us around.”

Turning things around — now that is something Reasoner can relate to.