The Edmonton Oilers are having a pretty nice offseason after some rough regular seasons. They continued that just before free agency opened on Sunday by re-signing veteran Ryan Smyth to another deal for a reported two years and $4.5 million.
Smyth engineered a return to Edmonton last offseason, a city he began his NHL career and spent most of it before heading off to a few other teams, most recently the Kings. It made things crystal clear that Smyth wanted to play for the Oilers, hopefully for the rest of his career.
In that regard, Smyth re-signing isn't much of a surprise at all. There was only a little doubt that he might entertain an offer to go elsewhere, but the list of teams wasn't long at all. The odds were very high that he'd stay in Edmonton to be a mentor to the young core and that's exactly what's going to happen.
The cap hit of $2.25 million per season is very reasonable for the player they are getting, too. Smyth still has some production in his game, scoring 19 goals with 27 assists last season.
The Oilers also announced a new one-year contract for Yann Danis before free agency opened.
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