Filip Forsberg, Predators agree to eight-year, $68M contract

Filip Forsberg isn’t leaving Nashville anytime soon as the Predators announced that they’ve agreed to an eight-year contract with the winger.  While financial terms weren’t officially disclosed, 104.5 The Zone’s Dawn Davenport was the first to report that the deal is worth around $70M; Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli confirms that the deal carries an $8.5M AAV and is worth a total of $68M.

The 27-year-old has spent parts of the last 10 seasons with the Predators after they acquired him at the trade deadline from Washington in 2013 in exchange for Martin Erat and Michael Latta in a trade that worked out a whole lot better for Nashville than it did for the Capitals.  Since then, Forsberg has become a consistent scorer for the Preds and has been a key cog on their top line for several years.

While Forsberg has been pretty steady in the goal-scoring department having notched at least 20 goals in each of his first six seasons (and produced at a 20-plus-goal pace in 2020-21), he found a new gear this past season, scoring 42 goals while chipping in with 42 assists, both career highs by a considerable margin.  That was good enough to finish third on the Predators in points behind Roman Josi and Matt Duchene with their goal output — which ranked 12th in the league — helping to propel them to the postseason with the team being in the middle of the pack in goals allowed.

The timing for that jump in production couldn’t have been better for Forsberg as it placed him as one of the top free agents of this year’s class, giving him plenty of leverage in contract talks.  That has allowed him to earn a $2.5M raise from his previous contract and plenty of job security since he’ll be signed through the 2029-30 season.  It will be interesting to see if he was able to get any form of trade protection in the contract as that’s something that GM David Poile has historically been extremely hesitant to hand out over the years.

The Preds are clearly looking to remain in the playoff picture after adding Ryan McDonagh earlier this offseason, and keeping Forsberg in the fold will certainly help their chances of reaching the postseason again.  They have a little more than $9M left in cap space, per CapFriendly, with RFA winger Yakov Trenin the most notable still to be signed, so it’s possible that the Predators could look to add another impact player this summer if they intend to spend close to the $82.5M salary cap.