Josh Cooper of The Tennessean reports Predators GM David Poile met with impending UFA defenseman Ryan Suter on Thursday at Suter’s house in Madison, WI.
“The meetings were very, very good,” Poile said. “They were very positive and very constructive.”
Poile also stated he and Suter’s agent, Neil Sheehy, would continue to talk on a regular basis leading up to the July 1 free agency deadline. Given how the NHL landscape has shifted recently, these talks are going to be of great importance as it seems things are transpiring for Suter to at least test the free-agent waters.
The Detroit Red Wings -- rumored to be one of Suter’s main suitors -- have both a No. 1 defenseman spot and $6.2 million available now that captain Nicklas Lidstrom has retired.
Yesterday, TSN’s Bob McKenzie noted that -- based on the current CBA and Hockey Related Revenue -- the upcoming salary cap would be $70.3 million, meaning a whole bunch of teams could have spending money to throw at Suter.
Of course, the CBA expires on Sept. 15 and nobody knows for certain where the cap will end up.
It should also be noted that Nashville is one of the teams with surplus cap space. The Preds could have as much as $38 million available, though they do have a number of key RFAs and UFAs in addition to Suter: Shea Weber, Sergei Kostitsyn, Alexander Radulov, Colin Wilson, Andrei Kostitsyn, Paul Gaustad, Jordin Tootoo, Hal Gill and Anders Lindback.