Tuesday turned out to be a pretty productive day for the Nashville Predators organization.
Not only did they match the 14-year offer sheet for their captain, defenseman Shea Weber, they also agreed to terms with another of their restricted free agents by signing forward Colin Wilson to a three-year contract.
The deal will pay him an average annual salary of $2 million per year.
According to the team he will make a base salary of $1.5 million in 2012-13, $2 million in 2013-14 and then finish it up with $2.5 million in 2014-15. At that point he will still be a restricted free agent and under Nashville's control.
Obviously this isn't as huge as their decision to match Philadelphia's offer for Weber, but that shouldn't (and doesn't) take away from the fact that it's still a rock solid deal for the Predators. In Wilson they're getting one of their top young players signed to what should be considered a pretty cap friendly contract not only for what he provides, but also his potential to keep getting better (assuming coach Barry Trotz trusts him a bit more on the ice and is willing to keep increasing his role).
The 22-year-old Wilson was Nashville's first-round pick, No. 7 overall, back in 2008 and is coming off what was his most productive season on a per-game basis. Appearing in just 68 games for Nashville during the 2011-12 season he scored 15 goals to go with 20 assists while spending most of his ice time alongside David Legwand and Patric Hornqvist.
Along with the overall point production, he's already shown a pretty strong two-way game and was one of Nashville's best possession players last season (plus-14 Relative Corsi) while nearly all of his teammates seemed to perform better when he was on the ice with them.
The Predators also re-signed Sergei Kostitsyn to a two-year contract on Monday to go along with the Wilson re-signing and the decision to keep Weber.
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