The Penguins signed one more of their pending unrestricted free agents to a new multi-year contract.
Ron Hextall on Tuesday announced that the Penguins have signed Casey DeSmith to a two-year contract that carries an average annual value of $1.8 million.
That gives DeSmith a $550,000 raise from his previous contract that carried an average annual value of $1.25 million.
DeSmith, 30, appeared in 26 games for the Penguins last season, going 11-6-5 with a 2.79 goals-against average, .914 save percentage and three shutouts. With Tristan Jarry sidelined at the end of the regular season with a broken foot, DeSmith started Game 1 of the Penguins' first-round playoff series against the Rangers.
DeSmith left in the second of three overtime periods in Game 1 with a core muscle injury, an injury he said had been bothering him for the last month and a half of the season. He underwent surgery to repair the muscle on May 6.
"It was just the nature of double-overtime and the fatigue and stuff like that," he said of his injury on the Penguins' locker room cleanout day. "I made a movement and just felt my whole hip and groin just kind of all go at once. It was a pretty easy decision to pull myself out of the game considering I couldn't really move or go down or anything like that. I knew it was pretty much done for me at that point."
This was the second postseason in a row in which DeSmith was unavailable to the Penguins due to a core muscle injury. DeSmith specified that the injury this time was to his right groin, whereas the injury that necessitated surgery last offseason was to his left groin. He was optimistic about the recovery process this summer, having gone through this exact surgery once before, just on the opposite side.
"I had the same thing done last year on the left groin, and I had no issues this year with my left groin," he said. "I saw a great surgeon and he did a good job and successful surgery. I have good facilities good physical therapy here, good strength training. I'm just looking forward to getting back to being healthy and not having to deal with this anymore."
DeSmith has remained in Pittsburgh during the offseason, and I first saw him start skating at the Lemieux Complex in early June. He initially was just working on skating drills with goaltending coach Andy Chiodo, and then quickly progressed to taking shots over the following days.
The signing leaves the Penguins with $21,408,158 in projected cap space with nine forwards, six defensemen, and two goaltenders under contract and projected to be on the NHL roster.
