Casey DeSmith is ready to join the Penguins, even in a reserve role

Casey DeSmith still is trying to figure out what he’ll be taking with him as he joins the Pittsburgh Penguins in Toronto for the NHL’s postseason tournament.

Practicing in Cranberry for the past week-plus during the team’s training camp, the reserve goaltender has a few basics in mind but doesn’t know what he will pack.

“I haven’t even started,” DeSmith said via a video conference Thursday. “I’m kind of putting it off. I don’t really know what to bring yet. Maybe a few discs (similar to Frisbees) to throw around in a field somewhere. Probably the Xbox, too.”

And a passport.

DeSmith learned the hard way how important that item is in January.

With a series-of-back to back games against the Montreal Canadiens on the road Jan. 4 then a home contest against the Florida Panthers Jan. 5, the Penguins recalled DeSmith for the game in Montreal to allow Tristan Jarry an opportunity to avoid overnight travel and be prepared for the home contest.

Those plans went askew as DeSmith misplaced his passport and could not make the trek from Wilkes-Barre to Montreal. That prompted the team to recall Finnish prospect Emil Larmi from the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers to serve as Matt Murray’s backup in Montreal.

“I ended up finding my passport five months later in a pair of jeans at my house or something,” DeSmith said. “It was crazy. It was in a place where I would have never found it. I got myself a nice passport holder. We’re not going to be doing that again.”

Little went as planned for DeSmith during the 2019-20 season, mainly because he spent virtually all of it at the American Hockey League level.

After signing a three-year contract extension with a salary cap hit of $1.25 million in January of 2019, it seemed like fair assumption management viewed DeSmith as the backup moving forward. Blessed with a rare bit of contract certainty for a journeyman, DeSmith and his wife, a native of Western Pennsylvania, purchased a home in the Pittsburgh region.

But after a strong training camp by goaltender Tristan Jarry, the Penguins, facing a salary cap crunch, opted to keep Jarry and his $675,000 salary cap hit on the NHL roster and assigned Jarry to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after he cleared waivers.

As a team, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins struggled during the regular season. Before the AHL halted play in mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic, the AHL Penguins had a 29-26-3-5 record and were in sixth place of the eight-team Atlantic Division.

Despite his team’s woes, DeSmith had a sturdy season. In 41 games, he had an 18-18-2 record along with a 2.92 goals-against average, a .905 save percentage and three shutouts. For November, he was named the AHL’s top goaltender.

“Obviously, we had some really good months and some really bad months,” DeSmith said. “And there’s a lot of ups and downs down there. There was lots of turnover. We lost a lot of guys being called up. Towards the end of the (season), we had tons of guys called up from Wheeling who were playing with us. But everybody competed every night. We did the best we could as a team, for sure. I was happy with my numbers. I was happy with the consistency that I had. Obviously, there were good months and bad months. But I didn’t think there was any time where I had really bad stretches where I felt bad about my play. So I was happy with the little bit of consistency I was able to find.”

At 6-foot and 181 pounds, DeSmith is something of an outlier: The average dimensions of goaltenders are 6-2½ and 200 pounds (and growing). Even on the Penguins’ roster, DeSmith stands out (or down) in comparison to Jarry (6-2, 194 pounds) or Murray (6-4, 178 pounds).

He realizes his game is different than some of the sequoias rooted in the blue paint elsewhere in the NHL such as Ben Bishop (6-7, 210 pounds) of the Dallas Stars or Jacob Markstrom (6-6, 206 pounds) of the Vancouver Canucks.

“Maybe I can’t get away with as much as some of those bigger guys,” DeSmith said. “If you’re bigger, you’re just going to take up more net so maybe your positioning doesn’t need to be quite as spot-on. Or if you’re a little bit behind a shot, maybe it just knicks your shoulder and what not. And maybe I can’t get away with that. I just find myself having to read the shot a little bit more. Rely on my quickness to get an extra six inches of depth here and there. Cut down the angle a little bit more. Definitely more positioning-dependent and reading the shot, stuff like that.”

If things go as planned for the Penguins, they will spend approximately two months in quarantined, controlled environments in Canada. First, in Toronto then in Edmonton where the conference finals and Stanley Cup Final are scheduled to be staged. That likely will mean DeSmith will not have played or even suited up as a backup. And as a “black ace,” that entails minimal practice time.

Unlike his unsuccessful recall in January, he’s prepared for the next two months under those circumstances, entertainment options notwithstanding.

“It’s not going to be the regular practices with the team, it’s not going to be the full squad,” DeSmith said. “So just getting the most out of those black ace practices, whether it’s doing a couple of goalie drills before or after. Spending some extra time, bearing down in those practices when maybe the intensity isn’t quite there but bringing your own personal intensity, ratcheting that up a bit, I think that’s going to be important. Just staying ready. Obviously, this is a crazy climate we’re in and crazy things are going to happen, either our team or other teams.

“Just trying to stay ready and do my best to help the guys around me get better, too.”

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