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Two down, one to go: Wings ink Tatar to three-year, $8.25M deal

tomastatargetty

James OBrien

The Detroit Red Wings went into this offseason needing to secure deals for three key restricted free agents.

On Monday, they locked down No. 2.

Detroit agreed to a three-year extension with forward Tomas Tatar, the club announced. Tatar, 23, is coming off a breakout campaign in which he posted career highs for games played (73), goals (19), assists (20) and points (39), all while averaging 14:21 TOI per game. Tatar then led all Detroit skaters with 19 shots on goal during an opening-round playoff loss to Boston (during which, it should be mentioned, he struggled, going scoreless with a minus-3 rating and a team-high eight PIM.)

UPDATE: Per TVA, Tatar signed for $8.25 million over the three years, good for an average annual cap hit of $2.75M -- a really nice pay bump from the three-year entry-level deal he was playing on, which netted him $630,000 per.

Detroit’s second-round pick (60th overall) at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, Tatar -- along with Riley Sheahan and Danny DeKeyser -- was one of the key RFAs Detroit needed to re-up with this summer. The Red Wings took care of Sheahan early, inking him to a two-year pact on July 1, and now need to turn their attention to DeKeyser.

Over the weekend, the 24-year-old defenseman said there would be “no problems” on reaching a new deal with the Wings, adding that his contractual status would be sorted out prior to training camp. DeKeyser is a key figure for Detroit; he’s the club’s best young defenseman and, despite missing significant time with a shoulder injury, racked up 23 points in 65 games while averaging 21:38 TOI last year.