The Nashville Predators have re-signed restricted free agent goalie Juuse Saros to a four-year contract worth $20 million, or $5 million per season. This contract carries him through the 2025-26 season.
Nashville and Juuse Saros have a four-year, $20M extension to avoid arbitration
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) August 16, 2021
Juuse Saros Signs New Deal
Saros has only played for the Predators in his six-year NHL career. Nashville originally drafted in the fourth round, 99th overall of the 2013 NHL Draft. He has a career record of 76 wins, 47 losses and 17 overtime defeats. The Forsa, Finland native has 14 career shutouts and a goals-against-average of 2.50. He also has a career save percentage of .920.
The 26-year-old had a career year with a record of 21-11-1 and three shutouts. He also supplied a goals-against-average of 2.28 and a save percentage of .927. Saros also won two playoff games in Nashville’s Central Division series against the Carolina Hurricanes.
He’s also represented his native Finland at the international level and his picked up some hardware, too. Saros was the top goaltender of the 2014 IIHF World Junior Championship squad that won the gold medal. He’s also won a pair of IIHF World Championship silver medals in 2014 in Belarus and 2016 in Russia. He ironically served as teammate Pekka Rinne‘s backup in the former World Championships.
What This Means for the Future
It was a breakout campaign for the young Finn as he wrested the starting job from Rinne. Saros’ play was one of the reasons that the Predators surged past the Dallas Stars in order to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He got well-deserved Vezina Trophy consideration in a crowded field.
He came at a relative bargain of $1.5 million the last few seasons. Saros is getting a well-deserved raise and the deal should lock him down as the team’s starter in net for the foreseeable future. Yaroslav Askarov is a few seasons away from being ready, but Saros is playing like a capable high-end starting goalie.
