The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta reports the Dallas Stars are signing right wing Craig Smith to a one-year, $1MM deal.
This past season, Smith showed some significant decline whilst playing for the red-hot Boston Bruins. Much of that had to do with the over three-minute decline he saw in his ice time, and the general nature of Father Time. Before being traded to the Washington Capitals at the trade deadline, Smith played 42 games for Boston, scoring four goals and six assists.
Those offensive numbers are extremely tepid, but the defensive talent to his game did shore up some of his offensive inadequacies. At the beginning of last season, Smith was right on the heels of scoring 16 goals and 20 assists for Boston, as well as being one of the more hard-working players on the roster. After the trade, his time in Washington went about the same, scoring five goals and one assists in the last 22 games of the regular season.
In Dallas, with already a stacked forward core heading into next season, Smith could find himself regularly playing on the team’s bottom line, or also find himself a regular healthy scratch as one of the team’s extra forwards. Aside from that, with already so many talented wingers on the roster, Smith will have to improve his game quite considerably to find more playing time.
I know he was a veteran throw-in for that deadline deal, but it was fun while it lasted.