From Belarus With Love

Today the news broke that Sergei Kostitsyn has resigned with the Nashville Predators avoiding not one but two arbitration meetings.  The deal is one year paying out 2.5 million dollars.  Maybe this is an over payment but considering we have our leading scorer back, it's worth it.  Last year Sergei had twenty-three goals and twenty-seven assists totaling fifty points.  Sergei is one of only three players to total twenty-three goals and have a positive +/-.  The other two players in this category were Mike Richards and Pavel Datsyuk.  Next year Datsyuk will make 6.7 million and Mike Richards will make 5.75 million.  Now in no way should Sergei Kostitsyn be compared to these two players... yet.  The best part of this deal is that Sergei will still be a RFA at the end of it.  The money will be easy to move if we so choose, if not, hopefully we actually get qualifying offers in next year.