One day after not qualifying Devente Smith-Pelly and making him an unrestricted free-agent, the Capitals have re-signed the forward.
The move allows the Capitals to avoid giving him a larger raise and avoid arbitration rights. Instead they will pay him one-million for one year. Last year he made $600K.
The news here is according to Mr. Darren Dreger of TSN, and of course it won't be official until July 1st. Or maybe it already is. The fact is, it's confusing when player can sign or not, since apparently OEL can't be made official until July 1st, but the John Carlson is official, while Jack Johnson is going to Pittsburgh, unofficially, unless he's going to Montreal - officialness pending.
Plus, he scored 7 goals in the playoffs.
To be clear: he is not very good. He isn't good value at $1 million, and he's pretty much a replacement player if not worse. Defense? Terrible. Offense? Almost non-existent.
So why keep him?
Well statistically the argument for getting rid of him is easy - he's terrible. But, cutting the only outspoken player on your team after he scores seven goals in the playoffs isn't a good look. It doesn't work from a public relations standpoint - at all.
And there's some upside here. If he scored seven goals in the playoffs, maybe he's improving. He probably isn't going to get much better since he's 26, but he might.
Additionally, if the intangibles mean anything, this guy intanges all over the place, so for a minimal salary (relatively) why not just bring back the playoff hero?