Flyers’ offer sheet to Shea Weber: $110 million over 14 years, with $68 million in bonuses

As we said early Thursday morning, the Philadelphia Flyers' offer sheet to defenseman Shea Weber would sink or swim on two general issues for the Nashville Predators:

Is it worth retaining a player that, based on the Predators shopping him, may have indicated his time with the franchise is at an end; and could Nashville match the financial terms of the deal?

Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet had those terms this morning, and Ed Snider is apparently driving dump trucks filled with Comcast money to Mr. Weber's house as we speak.

The terms:

• $110 million over 14 years; if that $110 million figure sounds familiar, that's the dollar amount the Philadelphia Flyers were dangling for Zach Parise.

• The cap hit: $7.857 million per season, slightly higher than that of Ryan Suter with the Minnesota Wild.

• The first four years of the contract have a base salary of $1 million and $13 million in signing bonuses in each year. The signing bonuses would be protected from a CBA salary rollback; Weber would be guaranteed $52 million in the first four years of the deal.

• The fifth and sixth years feature a $4 million salary and an $8 million signing bonus. Once more, with feeling: That's $68 million guaranteed in the first six years of the deal.

• Years 7-10 feature a $6 million salary with no signing bonus. That drops to $3 million in Year 11.

• Years 12-14, to the surprise of no one, are at $1 million to bring down the average annual salary of the deal.

Again, the issues are whether the Predators want to match this, and if they can. Their "we'll match at any cost" boasts came mostly before the reality of live without Suter in Nashville hit home for Weber; does he want to come back?

And, more importantly, can a team that's facing questions about the sustainability of their business model match $68 million in signing bonuses over the first six years of the deal?