Joseph Cramarossa has signed a new contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Cramarossa has been on an AHL deal and playing for the WB-Scranton Penguins the past 2 seasons. Having recently traded 2 centres for 1 (and a half, I suppose, in Bjugstad) in return this just provides emergency depth up the middle. It’s only for the duration of this season so nothing lost really, and in the AHL he’s likely not making much more than he was on his AHL-only deal (tho we can never know for sure as those deals aren’t made public usually). ??‍♀️

If anything, I think this deal is about the WB-Scranton team who are in a tight playoff race in the Atlantic Division at the moment. This basically prevents other organizations from poaching him and adding them to their team for the AHL stretch run.

I don't think that last part's a thing, just because the player has signed a contract, period. NHL contracts don't magically void AHL contracts like that; contracts, in general, are still legally binding, so I'm pretty sure you can't just get out of it just because another organization's trying to entice you with a better offer.

I read this as more "assuming the Penguins make the playoffs, they don't have to deal with salary cap limits anymore and can call up whoever they want as a Black Ace, as long as that 'whoever' is on an NHL contract."

It’s happened a couple times this year already, actually. I’m blanking on names but they’ll come to me. Also, see this thread: https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/status-of-players-on-ahl-only-contracts.2566635/