Senators’ Shane Pinto breathing sigh of relief after signing

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Shane Pinto is signed, sealed and ready to deliver.

That sigh of relief you heard across the city late Tuesday afternoon came all the way from the Franklin Square, N.Y., home of the Ottawa Senators’ centre after he agreed to a two-year, $7.5-million U.S. contract.

Pinto had no designs on following the path he took last year when he remained unsigned all summer, couldn’t get a deal done because of cap space and then had the talks halted when he learned he was being suspended for 41 games for breaking the NHL’s gambling rules.

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“It’s been a long two years, so just to finally be all set and not have to worry about camp, it’s going to be nice. I’m definitely excited about it,” Pinto told Postmedia on Wednesday afternoon from his off-season home.

The 23-year-old Pinto never asked to be traded and had no desire to go anywhere else. In an ideal world, this contract would have been done before he suited up with the Team USA at the IIHF world championship in May, but the two sides weren’t on the same page on a long-term deal.

Postmedia reported on June 19 that Pinto’s New York-based agent, Lewis Gross, and Steve Staios, the club’s president of hockey operations and general manager, had turned the focus to a two-year term to see if they could get something in place.

The two sides were at a stalemate until Tuesday when the club cleared $2.95 million in cap space by sending winger Mathieu Joseph to the St. Louis Blues with a third-round pick. Staios’ next call was to Gross to say the club wanted this negotiation to come to an end.

“Last year, getting a deal done was a big distraction because it was in the back of my mind the whole summer,” said Pinto. “Now, I can just worry about training, I can get up to Ottawa early and all the boys know that this is going to be a big, big year for us.

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“I can just focus on the season; hopefully we can start off on the right foot and we don’t have any distractions. I thought that was a big thing last year and I was happy to get this over with.”

Pinto didn’t ask for a play-by-play from Gross and he tried to stay away from the drama of talks, but he didn’t want this to drag on.

“Last year, I was on social media through this whole thing,” Pinto said. “I learned to block it out and I deleted that whole thing. I talked to my agent and said, ‘Listen, tell me when there’s good news.’ Yesterday was a good phone call finally and it ended up working out.”

After serving the 41-game suspension, Pinto signed one-year contract worth $775,000 so he could get into Ottawa and show what he had. He could have thrown in the towel on the year after everything he’d been through, but Pinto finished with nine goals and 27 points in 41 games.

He left Ottawa feeling good about himself. He didn’t sit at home during his hiatus and pout. Instead, he spent hours (and hours) with a skills training coach to get ready for his return to the Senators, and it showed.

“It could have gone the other way,” Pinto said. “It was a sh-tty situation I put myself in, but I was able to respond, bounce back and had the team behind me. It was a good end to the year and it gave me confidence going into the summer to prepare to have a good camp.

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“This gives me some confidence going into next year.”

Pinto will change his routine by making a trip to the Maritimes to skate and work out with teammate Drake Batherson in late August.

“I’m going to spend two weeks out there in Halifax and then come up to Ottawa right after Labour Day to skate with the guys there,” Pinto said. “A lot of guys want to get there early to get ready for camp. We can get ready before camp so when it starts we’re shooting on all cylinders.”

When he joins Batherson in Halifax, Pinto will be on the ice with the likes of Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, league MVP Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche and Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand.

“That was the plan last year and it didn’t happen because of everything that went on,” Pinto said. “I’ve got my flight booked and I’m ready to go.”

It’s been a tough 12 months, but Pinto has come out on the other side and he’s learned the hard way that life is a roller-coaster ride.

“It can change in a heartbeat and you can’t take anything for granted,” Pinto said. “That was the main thing, and (he learned) how special it’s to play in the NHL. It gave me the perspective that it can be taken away from you pretty quickly.

“The blessing in disguise is that I learned a lot from it. I grew us a player, as a person, and I think I responded pretty well. There was definitely some adversity, but I did a good job of responding. There was definitely a lot of lessons to be learned from last year.”

BGarrioch@postmedia.com

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