The Nashville Predators liked what Mikael Granlund did down the stretch last season to help them make the playoffs, so they rewarded the unrestricted free agent with a four-year, $20 million deal.

"Signing Mikael to a contract that will keep him here in Nashville was a priority for us as we entered the free agency period," general manager David Poile said in a statement. "He has been one of our most consistent players since he joined the Predators, played a crucial role in helping turn our team around last season and fits in extremely well with our team chemistry and the identity we are trying to build."

Granlund had seasons with 69 points and 67 points before a trade to Nashville in February 2019 for Kevin Fiala. After that the players went in opposite directions. Fiala has scored more than 20 goals in each of the last two seasons. Granlund had 30 points two seasons ago and 27 last season.

After the 30-point campaign Granlund took a paycut on a one-year deal to stay in Nashville.

Under coach John Hynes, though, Granlund did show more consistency. He also stepped into the center spot when Matt Duchene was injured and won almost 52% of his faceoffs.

The NHL free agency signing period for 2021 is officially open.

For each key player who signs a deal, we'll assess the player's fit with his new team, weigh whether the terms of the deal make sense, and serve up an overall grade for the team.

We'll continue to grade the most notable moves through the offseason, so check back for fresh grades as deals are consummated; the newest grades will be up top.

More: Free-agency tracker
Draft recap: Every pick | Takeaways

Note: Advanced stats via Natural Stat Trick and Evolving Wild, unless otherwise noted.

KAWAGOE, Japan – There is no shortage of reasons to want to represent your country in the Olympics, but for Si Woo Kim and Sungjae Im this week’s golf competition is about more than glory and country.

Kim and Im, who both skipped this month’s Open Championship in order to prepare for the Games, can earn an exemption from two years of mandatory military service in South Korea by winning a medal in Tokyo.

Although that’s a special kind of pressure, both players dismissed the notion that it will make things more difficult.

“I know it's true that if we earn a medal the Korean government will exempt us from serving in the military, but I don't really, like, focus or think about the service in the military,” Kim said. “My only goal is to win the championship and get medal and be honored.”

Im added, “I only think focus and think about the winning games, not the military problem.”

As for skipping The Open, the players explained the goal was to adjust to the new time zone before play started. “I made myself so comfortable and relaxed and prepared for the Olympic games,” Im said.

KAWAGOE, Japan – For golfers, the highlight of the Olympics is the chance to mix with world-class athletes from other sports. And while that opportunity may be diminished this year because of COVID-19 restrictions, there are still opportunities to savor the experience.

On Tuesday three of the four members of Team USA spent time with players and coaches from the American basketball team, including head coach Gregg Popovich. Patrick Reed was not present with his three teammates as he didn’t arrive in Japan until Wednesday afternoon.

“We spent a lot of time with the coaches, which was really cool. Draymond [Green] sat with us for a little bit. But for the most part we were just hanging out with Jay [Wright] and Steve Kerr and [Popovich] came in for a little bit,” Justin Thomas said. “It was cool just to talk to those guys because you could tell they're such big golf fans.”

Thomas said he and the other members of the U.S. golf team had plenty of questions for their basketball counterparts and that curiosity was returned.

“All the questions that we want to ask them about basketball they're asking us about golf, so it's almost like the other one doesn't really feel bad because we're just kind of going back and forth,” Thomas said.

KAWAGOE, Japan – It’s been a year for Anirban Lahiri, but just don’t tell him his decision to play this week’s Olympic golf competition is selfless.

“It’s not selfless. It’s actually selfish because I want this. I’m not doing this for anyone else, I’m doing this for me,” he said Wednesday as he was putting the finishing touches on his preparations at Kasumigaseki Country Club.

The 34-year-old from India started this season on the PGA Tour with limited status, struggled for starts early and when he finally found some momentum in the spring, a positive COVID-19 test sent him spiraling, both professionally and physically.

When he did return to the Tour he missed three starts and his game and body weren’t right. By his own estimate, it took him about 45 days to “feel human again.”

“I lost a lot of weight, lost a lot of speed,” he said. “The first couple of events back I was completely out of depth. Physically it translated to tournament golf. When your adrenaline is pumping and you know what you can do but your body refuses to do it. You’re fighting yourself.”

He also found himself scrambling to qualify for the FedExCup playoffs with dwindling starts when he received the call that he’d qualified for the Olympics.

“The day I found out I was in [the Olympics], the first thing I did was I called my wife. I said, ‘I just got into the Olympics.’ She was like, ‘No way, I thought it was closed,’” Lahiri said. “She asked, ‘What do you want to do?’ And then I asked her a question, ‘How do you not play in an Olympics for your country?’”

Given the year he’s endured, given his struggles, the answer could have been straightforward. He’s currently 115^th on the season-long points race and in danger of losing his Tour card. But none of that mattered.

Lahiri understands what winning a medal in Tokyo would mean for golf in his country, where the game is still a niche sport.

“We got a shooting medal a few years ago in the Olympics and it completely revamped the shooting program in India. I saw what that did for shooting,” said Lahiri, who finished 57^th at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio. “I would like to be able to do the same thing for golf. Then I could say I did something for my career, not only for myself. This is the one week when I’m not really doing it for personal glory.”

Just don’t tell him he’s being selfless.

“If I woke up yesterday morning in Palm Beach after playing the 3M Open and not being here and I switched on the television to the Olympics I would have a hard time looking at myself in the mirror,” he said. “That’s me, I’m not saying that’s for everyone else, but that’s how I’m wired. That’s not selfless, that’s selfish.”

The Olympic Men's Competition gets underway Thursday at Kasumigaseki Country Club outside of Tokyo, Japan.

Who will stand on the podium? Who will just miss the medal ceremony? GolfChannel.com writers weigh with their predictions.

Who wins gold?

REX HOGGARD: Paul Casey. There was little in Justin Rose’s run-up to the 2016 Games to suggest the Englishman was on the cusp of a gold-medal winning performance, but though he lacked results, he had plenty of passion. Casey seems to have stepped in for Rose in Tokyo after making the Olympics his singular focus this year.

RYAN LAVNER: Viktor Hovland. In two short years he has proved his game can travel, he’s embracing the Olympic experience, and he enters the Games with a ton of confidence having a win (BMW International) and T-12 (Open) in his past two starts.

BRENTLEY ROMINE: Hideki Matsuyama. We haven't seen him in weeks because of his COVID-19 diagnosis, but he's here and ready to win Gold for the host country. With the course playing soft, that plays into a lot of these players' games, but especially Matsuyama. He also has some prior experience on this layout, too, though that was back in his amateur days.

Who wins silver?

HOGGARD: Collin Morikawa. Near-misses aren’t really a standard that professional golfers focus on, but at the Olympics, where finishing in the top 3 is a goal unto itself, consistency is rewarded and no one in this week’s field has been more consistent than Morikawa this season. He has eight top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour to go along with those two victories.

LAVNER: Collin Morikawa. He seems refreshed and ready, and if his putter is even remotely as hot as it was at Royal St. George’s, this will be another stellar debut.

ROMINE: Thomas Detry. The Belgian golfer and former Illinois standout has two runner-up finishes in each of the past two seasons on the European Tour. A runner-up, aka silver medal, would be fitting this week.

Who wins bronze?

HOGGARD: Abraham Ancer. One of the comparisons being made this week is that Kasumigaseki Country Club reminds players of Quail Hollow Club, which hosts the Tour’s Wells Fargo Championship. Ancer finished runner-up this year at Quail Hollow and is one of the few players staying in the Athlete’s Village and taking full advantage of the Olympic experience.

LAVNER: Paul Casey. One of the game’s most complete players, he arrives in solid form and has been arguably the most energized by the Olympics, knowing that at 44 it’s likely his last chance to represent Great Britain.

ROMINE: Collin Morikawa. No one is playing better golf right now, and if his putter stays hot, it will be hard to keep Morikawa off the podium.

Who just misses the podium?

HOGGARD: Xander Schauffele. Just behind Morikawa in the consistency department is his American teammate (seven top-10s this season), and there’s a sentimental element to this week’s Games for Schauffele, whose grandparents are from Japan. He may not reach the podium, but it will still be a special week for Schauffele.

LAVNER: Xander Schauffele. It’s a de-facto home game for Schauffele, whose family history could add a dose of pressure to the proceedings. Given his previous close calls, it’ll be interesting to see how he handles that stage. Maybe it’ll provide him the experience he needs to get over the top in the majors.

ROMINE: Sungjae Im. Everyone will likely be rooting for Im and fellow South Korean Si Woo Kim to win medals and avoid their mandatory military service, but the odds are certainly against them – Im is 25/1 and Kim 50/1. I expect Im to make things interesting, but ultimately I think he falls just short.

Who will make a name for himself?

HOGGARD: Adrian Meronk. It seems unlikely Meronk will win a medal, but he will make history in Japan nonetheless. Earlier this summer, the 28-year-old became the first player from Poland to play in a major championship at the U.S. Open, and this week he becomes the first golfer from his country to compete in the Olympics.

LAVNER: Mito Pereira. Overshadowed by fellow countryman Joaquin Niemann for the past few years (and for good reason), the Chilean is coming into his own and has enjoyed a strong three-month run. After earning an instant promotion to the PGA Tour, he has started to feel at home on the big Tour, with back-to-back top-6s. On the grandest stage in sports, it's time to learn more about him.  

ROMINE: Carl Yuan. Even if he doesn't come close to the medal stand, the Chinese golfer out of the University of Washington will likely be talked about throughout the tournament. He hasn't played on the Korn Ferry Tour since the Wichita Open in late June, and he finished that week ranked No. 27 on the tour's points list. However, he's since missed the last four KFT events – and slipped to No. 31 – in order to return to China for centralized Olympic training. With just two more regular-season events left on the KFT schedule, “I probably have to miss the rest of the season," Yuan said earlier this week. Of course, an Olympic medal would help ease the sting.

The United States men's national team will face Mexico in a World Cup qualifier at Cincinnati's TQL Stadium on Nov. 12, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced on Wednesday. Per a U.S. Soccer release, the match will air live on the ESPN networks and Univision family of networks, with kickoff time to be determined.

The choice of venue amounts to a break with recent tradition. While the game will mark the sixth consecutive time that the U.S. has hosted Mexico in a World Cup qualifier in Ohio, the previous five such encounters were played at Crew Stadium in Columbus.

The last time the U.S. hosted a World Cup qualifier against Mexico outside of Columbus was back in April of 1997, when the two sides played to a 2-2 draw in Foxborough, Mass.

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"We took a hard look at all the venues and I think one thing that was important was, we're going to need every venue that we play in to have an absolute [raucous] crowd," Berhalter said at a news conference ahead of Thursday's Gold Cup semifinal match against Qatar in Austin, Texas.

Berhalter added that having a pro-U.S. crowd was key for the qualifying matches, where CONCACAF opponents often have large numbers of supporters in the stands.

"We feel like we made some mistakes in the last qualifying cycle, particularly in the Costa Rica game [at Red Bull Arena], not having a crowd that was that was 100% U.S. And that's going to be extremely important.

"And when I look at some of the venues we've chosen already and will continue to announce, I think it fits perfectly into what we're what we're talking about. Cincinnati, in particular has, you know, good capacity stadium, brand-new, and I think it's going to be a fantastic venue to compete against Mexico."

Columbus outlet The Massive Report stated that the Crew's new stadium, Lower.com Field, will host the World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica on Oct. 13. The USSF has yet to officially announce the venue for that match.

The match against Mexico will mark the first of two games in the November window, with the U.S. traveling to Jamaica to face the Reggae Boyz four days later. It is the only time during qualifying for the 2022 World Cup that a double fixture window will be used.

Under the new qualifying format, a total of eight teams -- increased from six in previous cycles -- will compete in the final round, with the top three teams advancing to Qatar '22. The fourth-place team will participate in an Intercontinental playoff for the last spot.

Mexico holds the historical edge in the series, winning 36 of the 71 previous encounters along with 15 draws.

But the U.S. has made headway since 2000, amassing a record of 15-9-6 against its longtime rival.

It's record in World Cup qualifiers in that time is 4-4-2. The most recent match came last June when the U.S. claimed a 3-2 extra time victory in the final of the inaugural CONCACAF Nations League.

The USSF also announced that due to the anticipated high demand, it will once again be using a weighted random draw for tickets.