The Calgary Flames climbed on the bandwagon of cleaning their own house chores up before heading to the trade deadline with some kind of agenda, as they have re-signed defenseman Derek Smith to a new 2-year deal, which is a one-way deal worth $775,000 per season. Smith has been an under-the-radar defenseman that hasn't had a lot of notoriety in his career, but he came over to Calgary as an off-season signing and was doing fairly well before an ankle injury had sidelined him since the end of December. In 32 games, Smith had picked up 2 goals and 8 assists and was playing some quality minutes for the Flames.
The Flames have made a reasonable signing here with Smith, as their 2013 cap number looms fairly large going into the trade deadline, currently sitting at $45.1 million for 13 regulars (six forwards, five defensemen and two goalies), now including Smith. Unrestricted free agency appears to be their friend going into the off-season, but depending on what kind of moves the Flames want to make, they have a big number to play against if they are going to be picking up players with more than the 2012 season on their contract.
Smith certainly flew under the radar coming into the 2012 season, but the Flames, like a number of other castaways in seasons past, and was given a good chunk of minutes to try and flourish with. Smith turned out to be one of those players that had done well with his numbers and was likely going to have a long look at the second waiver draft, if he didn't get hurt in December. His scoring rate may make him into late-round pick in the draft next year, but he should be considered to be a large gamble, since he hasn't strung together two reasonable seasons yet.
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