The Nashville Predators have signed winger Denis Gurianov to a one-year, $850,000 contract.
Gurianov, 26, was an unrestricted free agent after the Montreal Canadiens decided not to give him a qualifying offer when his one-year, $2.9M contract. His new contract will have the lowest cap hit of his career, even his entry-level contract, but it is a one-way deal, so he will be paid the same amount at both the NHL and AHL levels.
Gurianov had the least productive season of his NHL career in 2022-23, although he did see a slight improvement after being traded, as he had just two goals, seven assists and nine points in 43 games with the Dallas Stars, and then had five goals, three assists, and eight points in 23 games with the Canadiens. However, his total of seven goals, 10 assists and 17 points in 66 games is a career-low outside of his first two seasons, where he played a combined 22 games.
Gurianov was the 12th overall pick of the Stars in 2015 out of the KHL, and he terminated his contract with Tolyatti Lada a year later to sign his entry-level contract with the Stars. He spent parts of seven seasons in the Stars organization before he was dealt to the Canadiens at the most recent trade deadline in a one-for-one trade for Evgenii Dadonov.
The Preds have had a busy offseason even before free agency, as longtime general manager David Poile called it a career and former head coach Barry Trotz took over the position, and Trotz made a statement by trading Ryan Johansen to the Colorado Avalanche and buying out Matt Duchene’s contract. They’ve made a few big signings in free agency, adding the likes of Ryan O’Reilly, Gustav Nyquist and Luke Schenn, and also secured Cody Glass and Alexandre Carrier to extensions. They still have just under $8M in cap space with no other restricted free agents to sign in their system.
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