Nashville Predators Match Shea Weber's Massive Offer Sheet

It's official: Shea Weber is now locked into a 14-year contract with the Nashville Predators after the team matched the offer sheet he signed with the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday.

Ryan Suter may be gone, but Nashville won't suffer a second defection from a premier defenseman this offseason.

The Predators' official website has the news:

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In the most important hockey transaction in franchise history, Nashville Predators Chairman Tom Cigarran, President of Hockey Operations/General Manager David Poile and CEO Jeff Cogen announced today that the team has matched the 14-year, $110 million offer sheet between the Philadelphia Flyers and defenseman Shea Weber, insuring that the Predators' captain will remain with the franchise for the next 14 years.

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Methinks Mr. Weber owes the Philadelphia franchise some thanks for helping him become a very rich man. In the first year alone, he's set to earn a $27 million bonus.

The star defenseman has scored 40 or more points in five of his seven NHL seasons and finished last season with career highs in plus/minus (plus-21) and ice time (26:10 minutes per game).

As many have noted before, Poile let Scott Stevens leave the Washington Capitals and join the St. Louis Blues after signing an offer sheet, one of the great mistakes of his career. Clearly, he did not want to make the same mistake twice.

For the Flyers, it simply continues a rather disappointing offseason. The team failed to lure either Ryan Suter or Zach Parise to town and lost Jaromir Jagr and Matt Carle in free agency. With Rick Nash now a New York Ranger and Weber still a Predator, the team has whiffed on several major targets.

For the Predators, the team should remain a playoff contender with two of its three major defensive components—Weber and outstanding goalie Pekka Rinne—intact.

The only tricky thing left for Nashville will be managing the cap over the next several years, as the team will be on the hook for $68 million in guaranteed money over the first six years of the deal.

You've got to pay to play, as they say—or perhaps more accurately, to win.

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