The Nashville Predators have landed one of the top free agents remaining, signing Nino Niederreiter to a two-year, $8MM contract. The $4MM average annual value comes in quite a bit below the $5.25MM cap hit he had carried for the last five years, and the two-year term will leave him as a UFA again at the age of 31.
There is a lot to like about this deal for the Predators, who now have the opportunity to reunite Niederreiter with former linemate Mikael Granlund if they choose. Getting a 24-goal scorer for such a reasonable contract perhaps shows how tight the market has become in the days since free agency opened, as this move presents very little risk for Nashville general manager David Poile.
With Filip Forsberg taken care of, the Predators had nearly $8.5MM in cap space to add to the current roster, with only Yakov Trenin left to re-sign. Putting Niederreiter in the mix gives them another versatile, physical winger to move up and down the lineup, one that comes with a strong history of goal-scoring.
Over a career that spans parts of 11 seasons and 732 games, Niederreiter has scored at almost exactly a 20-goal pace and most of his damage comes at even-strength. On last year’s Carolina Hurricanes team, for instance, his 20 even-strength goals trailed only Sebastian Aho (23) and Andrei Svechnikov (21) for the team lead.
Adding that kind of player–who also comes with 1,115 career hits–will help to lengthen out a Predators offensive group that suddenly looks rather imposing. After Matt Duchene and Ryan Johansen’s incredible bounce-back performances in 2021-22, the emergence of Tanner Jeannot and Philip Tomasino, and now Niederreiter’s addition, the team should be able to ice three lines that can produce offensively. Add in Ryan McDonagh on the back end and the Predators are setting up to be a real contender in the Central Division.
For the player, this is a rather stunning contract, given how similarly productive wingers like Rickard Rakell had landed much longer and more lucrative contracts. Still, Niederreiter has set himself up to hit the market again in two years when the cap will be starting to increase and at a young enough age to land another long-term deal. For the next two, he should provide solid value for the Predators as they continue to chase their first Stanley Cup.
Well I’ll be cow kicked! :0
You dun good, GM Poile. :)
Seems pretty team friendly for a player like Nino.
Nino has averaged about 35 points per game over his career with some good teams. His highest point total by far was 5 years ago. Free agency has been open for a couple of weeks so he was obviously not in high demand. What size contract were you expecting?
5.0 to 5.5
He scores goals during 5 v 5 not just PP. He plays a string game at the net opening things up for others, good defensively, very physical and doesn’t play a ton of minutes to put up the numbers that he does.
I wish we could edit from phones…
Almost all of his goals are even strength.
People seem to only want to look at point totals as if how you get them, how many goals you help stop and how you help your teammates put up points don’t matter.
It would seem that the folks that run NHL teams have been looking at all of those numbers and did not see the same value that you did. The market has spoken and your GM instincts were off by $1,000,000 – $i,500,000.
Yeah man, no reason to be a jerk. I said it seems team friendly, not “Whaaaa thee heck GMs you guys are idiots! I know everything!!”
Nino may have taken a lesser dollar amount to play for a team or in a state more desirable to him too. We don’t know all that goes into these decisions.
Wow, you are offended by my posts? Lighten up a bit. Once again, the market determined a players value. Don’t take a response that you don’t like as a personal attack.
Not offended at all, just not sure why you’re mixing my words so much. Then you followed it up with a heck of an assumption.
Looking above it seems I’m not the only a little surprised at the deal.
Side note, GBear makes a good point. Nino may have just preferred Nashville to more lucrative contracts. I think Texas, Florida and Tennessee are some of the only states that don’t have income tax. Maybe the offer was lower on paper but higher after taxes… further making my point.
“may have” and guessing about taxation further makes your point? Okay, let’s play that game. It is also a possibility that he “may have” not had any offers better than the one he signed.
Yeah dude, exactly he may have had better offers or he may not have. I don’t know. That’s why I used the phrase may have.
Let me google a list for you since this is apparently a huge deal to you.
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming have no state income tax… so yeah, I missed Washington, that’s crazy surprising to me they don’t have state income tax based on their other policies, otherwise I I’m right. Florida, Texas and Tennessee are all states with no income tax that someone can play in in the NHL.
Players choose destination, coaches, facilities or chance or winning over additional money all the time. Pretty reasonable he could have had more money on the table but didn’t take it.
So yeah, my comments aren’t unreasonable and GBear did have a point.
And to add to my point (thank you!), Nino played with Granlund when they were both with the Wild and Nino and Josi are both Swiss and have played on the National team on many occasions. Add to that that the Preds are a pretty good team right now and you can see why Nino may have went with the Preds offer.
Wow, you are reaching. Mikael Granllund is now a deciding factor in free agency? Well done. During every free agency period, guys sign with teams in states or provinces that have an income tax. Kinda blows a big hole in your theory. Please keep posting.
Hard to see why the Canes wouldnt beat this offer. The Nino-Staal-Fast line was essential. Oof.
Beat the offer? What *with*? The Canes have just $4MM in cap space left, and other UFA/RFAs to sign.
I’ve been thumping the drum for a while that there was less cap space around league-wide than people seemed to believe, that teams like Chicago and Arizona which don’t want to make out makes it lower still, and that the ability of teams to unload bad contracts presupposes the ability of other teams to take them on.
There are only a couple contenders left with any meaningful cap space, and they have the whip hand now. A Kadri or a Klingberg’s down to going hat in hand to Calgary, Dallas or Winnipeg and taking what they choose to offer, or else go play in Europe.
Well, for starters, years.
But as far as cap space, they could free up 2.9mil by buying out Jake Gardiner or the full 4.05 by finding a salary dump trade.
So, there are two possible answers.
Why would we buy out Gardiner? He’ll play in Raleigh this year. If healthy, he can be productive.
You have no way of knowing that after major surgery and over a year off.
And I thought the comment chain was apparent, but if not, to make room to sign Nino.
Yeah, but that turns into “the ability of teams to unload bad contracts presupposes the ability of other teams to take them on.” Which is evaporating. The word out of Arizona’s been that they’re going to be much less helpful when it comes to taking on bad contracts; with their gate and arena ad revenue gutted, they’re just not as inclined to spend money for picks as they were. Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit, Anaheim; they all have ambitions this year, and being bottom-feeding salary dumps isn’t among them. Then you have the pressure of all the teams that still need to shed salary before opening night to become cap compliant: that’s NINE teams with over $25MM overage.
Looking at the list, I see exactly ONE bottom feeder with cap space (discounting the ones like New Jersey with their own guys yet to re-sign): Seattle, with $9MM free.
So that means if I’m Ron Francis, I can take on two (modest) bad salaries. And I will drive a really hard freaking bargain for those. You want me to take on a bad salary, I want a first rounder as a payoff. Take it or leave it, chum.
The buyout has nothing to do with another team, however.
And again, if they offered 3yrs x 4mil you would think he would have taken it. Cant be sure, but its likely. Which means no salary would be needed to be moved yet since they can go above the cap during the offseason.
That’s a steal of a signing by Nashville. I wonder if Nino overplayed his hand not signing earlier and was the one left without the long contract
Just speculating, but Nino may have been holding out for an offer from the Canes that fell apart once they made the Burns and Pacioretty trades.