Over the course of the offseason, the Flyers have been linked to practically every big name and one by one the Zach Parises and Ryan Suters signed elsewhere.
Paul Holmgren finally pulled the trigger early Thursday morning by signing Nashville’s Shea Weber to a monstrous offer sheet while fans were off in dreamland.
According to TSN’s Darren Dreger, the deal is for 14 years and closer to the amount of $110 million. The Predators have seven days to match the offer if they hope to keep their All-Star defenseman.
Yes, you read that right. This deal would be the second-richest in NHL’s history, trailing only Alex Ovechkin’s $124 million contract.
If Nashville doesn’t match, the Flyers forfeit four first-round draft picks.
There are all types of insane numbers floating around on what this contract entails. The craziest is that Weber would take home $27 million in the next 347 days. According to Frank Seravalli of the Daily News, Weber will get $13 million when the deal is signed, $1 million in salary and $13 million next July 1.
Nick Kypreo broke down the offer sheet on his Twitter page this morning, noting that $80 million of the $110 must be paid in the first six years of the deal and the signing bonus is bigger than his in-season salary.
Nashville has said they would match any offer but you would have to think they didn’t expect something of this size. NSH, who already lost Suter this summer, is under a lot of pressure. If they don’t match, they are basically telling their fan base and players that they aren’t willing to put a winning team out on the ice.
On the other side, you can look at it as if Homlgren did David Poile’s job for him. All Nashville has to do is match it and they keep their franchise player. What makes that difficult is the upfront money that is guaranteed to Weber.
It looks like the odds are in the Flyers’ favor but with the extreme consequences surrounding Nashville if they decline make it hard to believe they would let Weber go.
And now we wait.
