Zach Smith and Colin Greening Sign Extensions

UPDATE: According to Capgeek, Greening’s 3-year deal comes at a cap hit of $816.667k per season and Smith’s 2-year deal comes in at $700k per season.

Bryan Murray and the Senators organization announced this afternoon that forwards Zach Smith and Colin Greening have signed contract extensions that will keep both players in Senators jerseys for the foreseeable future. It’s been a busy 24 hours Smith’s hands. Besides putting his name on a new contract, he used them to set up Ryan Keller’s game winning/series clinching OT goal that sent Binghamton to the Calder Cup Finals.

While the financial details have not been released yet, Greening was in the last year of his entry-level deal that paid him $850k at the NHL level and Smith’s paid him $583.333k. Although I don’t anticipate seeing either player earn a significant raise, both were rewarded with one-way contracts that will ensure a NHL salary and that their days of shuttling between Binghamton and Ottawa are over.

With a long list of impending RFAs — Bobby Butler, Roman Wick, Erik Condra, Ryan Potulny, Cody Bass, Kaspars Daugavins and Geoff Kinrade — Murray made two of his more obvious offseason decisions. Both players have not only been vital to the Binghamton Senators’ Calder Cup push, they played some significant roles for Ottawa down the stretch. In 24 games with the parent club, Greening showed some surprising offensive flair while playing alongside Jason Spezza – tallying 6 goals and 7 assists — and was one of the few players who had a positive plus/minus rating by the end of the season. Conversely, in Smith’s 55 games played, he excelled as more of an energy guy — racking up 120 PIMs and 129 hits — who displayed some modest offensive upside (4 goals, 5 assists).

As easy as it will to watch the organization purge itself of some lethargic veteran shitbags and get caught and excited about watching young players like Greening and Smith excel at the NHL level, their success does have a cautionary tale. Like some of the other aforementioned players that Bryan Murray will have to eventually re-sign this summer, due to the infancy of their NHL careers, neither Smith (23) or Greening (25) are as young as you may have been led to believe. As such, from a development standpoint, one has to wonder how much more room for growth and improvement both players can actually have. (Note: this age factor is why I’m absolutely ecstatic to see the success that Binghamton is having. It’s one thing for that organization to have sustained success featuring a veteran laden lineup and some fringe prospects and it’s another to see success while its two high-profile teenage prospects – Cowen and Lehner – flourish in their roles.)

Listening to Bryan Murray talk about today’s signings, the organization seems optimistic that both players can continue to improve and contribute. I can only hope that fans can temper their expectations based off this year’s small sample size of success.

You can listen to Murray comment below:

Memorial Cup Draft Eligible Prospects

Before I forget, for all of those junior hockey fans who will watch the 2011 Mastercard Memorial Cup, I put together a small list of draft eligible players who people should keep an eye on. Based off of Central Scouting’s recent report, here’s the list: