Nashville Predators hitched themselves to Filip Forsberg. Better hope it works | Estes

I don’t think those are cheers from over off Broadway. Sounds more like sighs of relief.

For now and basically forever, Filip Forsberg is a member of the Nashville Predators. An expensive, long-term, clause-heavy deal has handcuffed the moustache to the Preds. They’ll basically be incapable of doing anything with Forsberg other than to keep paying him his millions for eight years.

Eight years. $8.5 million per season.

Lot can happen to a hockey player in eight years. Most of it isn’t beneficial for his team.

But this, for the Predators, was better than the embarrassing alternative of Forsberg exiting in free agency and bringing nothing in return. No sense arguing today whether a shotgun marriage was the correct decision. The Predators made their choice before the trade deadline months ago to wed Forsberg, who spoke of mutual interest but was always going to command a high cost as a 40-goal scorer.

David Poile could hem and haw and play chicken with the negotiations to exercise a sense of control, but by the second week of July, he didn’t have much of a choice.

As much as this sweltering Summer of Forsberg has made the Predators sweat, the story simply couldn’t end with him leaving.

They did what they had to do. They didn’t get better. They just didn’t get a lot worse.

You can be happy about holding serve, but you’re not going to celebrate it.

The reality of Forsberg's deal

Forsberg will be nearly 36 when this deal expires. Whether the Predators win anything of substance between now and then will have much to do with whether his past season was for real and not a contract-year outlier in an otherwise good – but not as it could have been – playing career.

Such a deal is an enormous gamble by the Predators. It would be for any team.

A flat-salary-cap era in the NHL hasn’t been conducive for these just-give-him-whatever-he-wants contract extensions, but certain players still get – and deserve -- them.

Who had a problem with the Predators handing captain Roman Josi more than $9 million a year? Last year’s extension for goalie Juuse Saros, while much cheaper, was similarly a no-brainer.

Josi just barely missed out on his second Norris Trophy. Saros was just a finalist for the Vezina Trophy. Those are elite credentials.

Is Forsberg an elite player? It’s a difficult question. Because if he’s not, he could be.

The Predators haven’t ever had a goal-scorer as prolific. When a player surpasses a franchise’s all-time mark for goals – as Forsberg did last season at age 27 – it seems reasonable to move mountains to keep him. People who know hockey have looked at the Predators for years and pointed to Forsberg as their most talented forward by miles.

And yet …

Much as you’d like to view Forsberg as a sure thing, he’s not.

Better hope this works

If Forsberg becomes another overpriced, underperforming forward on a team that already has Ryan Johansen and Matt Duchene (though, in fairness, Dutchy had a great 2021-22, too) each burning through $8 million a year, it could be a long decade in Smashville.

It's not bleak as all that yet, though. Forsberg is still improving as a player and only now reaching his prime. Nothing says he couldn’t become one of the all-time greats for a franchise that doesn’t have many. It’s no longer unrealized potential with Forsberg. We’ve seen it now.

Maybe his expiring contract was just a coincidence as he produced the best season of his career, scoring a franchise-record 42 goals (33 had been his previous best), totaling 84 points and shooting 18.6% (he’s a career 12.9% shooter).

It’s too easy to look back – after a lopsided playoff sweep by the eventual champs in Colorado – and criticize the decision to keep Forsberg through the trade deadline and all this production. But what else could Poile have done? You gonna trade the best goal-scorer in franchise history in the middle of what at the time was the best offensive season in franchise history?

Even as his history suggests the stats aren’t duplicatable, you can’t fault Forsberg’s gumption and poise. He bet on himself in a big season, and he won.

Credit Forsberg for this, too: He forced the Predators to pick a lane. I don’t think they ever were truly rebuilding, but they surely aren’t now. They couldn’t dump Forsberg and his salary if they wanted.

So, yes, they’re trying to win. For now and basically forever. To do it, they’ll need more than just Forsberg.

But they’d better hope he’s worth it, too.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Predators hitched to Filip Forsberg with contract extension