The 26-year-old goalie was a restricted free agent and avoided a salary arbitration hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
"Juuse has proven himself as one of the best young goaltenders in the NHL, and we are very pleased to have him remain our No. 1 goaltender for years to come," Predators general manager David Poile said. "While being mentored by Pekka Rinne, he has spent the last several seasons growing and taking steps physically and mentally to become a top goalie in this league, as evident by his spot on the NHL's All-Rookie Team in 2017-18 to finishing near the top of Vezina Trophy voting this past season."
Saros was 21-11-1 with a 2.28 goals-against average, .927 save percentage and three shutouts in 36 games (35 starts) for the Predators last season. Among NHL goalies to play at least 15 games, he was tied with Chris Driedger of the Florida Panthers for fourth in save percentage and tied for ninth in GAA with Tuukka Rask of the Boston Bruins.
Saros took over as Nashville's No. 1 goalie midway through the season after sharing time with Rinne, who retired July 13. He then went 2-4 with a 2.78 GAA and .921 save percentage in six games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, when the Predators were eliminated by the Carolina Hurricanes in the best-of-7 Stanley Cup First Round.
"Now it's up to him to see whether he's truly a No. 1 goaltender," Poile said. "There's a lot of things that [Saros] still has to prove. It'll be his first year without Pekka. In a normal 82-game schedule, he's going to be called on to play more games than he's ever played before. ... In addition to that, obviously we hope we're a playoff team and we need our No. 1 goalie to be able to be there for us in the playoffs. A lot to prove on both sides, but I would hope that we would all agree based on his resume and what we've seen in [Saros'] progress and how he played last year, I'm pretty comfortable that [Saros] is going to be a really strong goaltender to inherit the No. 1 position from Pekka."
Selected by Nashville in the fourth round (No. 99) of the 2013 NHL Draft, Saros is 76-47-17 with a 2.50 GAA, .920 save percentage and 14 shutouts in 155 regular-season games (139 starts), and 3-7 with a 2.63 GAA and .914 save percentage in 17 playoff games (10 starts).
"Juuse gives our team a chance to win in every game he plays, and we feel confident that with him leading the tandem we've established with David Rittich (signed one-year contract July 28), our goaltenders will be a large part of our success in 2021-22," Poile said.
