Photo Courtesy of the Nashville Predators

The carpal tunnel syndrome caused by constant website-refreshing will ease. The mandibular muscles’ soreness from all that nocturnal teeth-grinding will fade, and sleep will come easily again.

You’ll forgive these acute symptoms in Nashville Predators fans — the ones developed during the six-week vigil that started when Ryan Ellis, the diminutive defenseman with the Gimlivian beard and a shot like a French 75, became eligible for a contract extension on July 1.

The memories of the sturm of Ryan Suter’s departure und the drang of Shea Weber’s offer sheet aren’t fresh exactly — six summers having come and gone — but the thoughts still fester and roil in the stomach like a bezoar. Maybe not as painful as before, but chronic nonetheless.

Ellis’ situation wasn’t nearly as pressing as those of the two blueliners of yore — there’s still a year left on Ellis’ deal — but there wasn’t a soul in Smashville who wanted the negotiation to stretch into the season, hanging like the sword of Damocles over the Bridgestone Arena ice.

In the end, of course, there was little need for worry: David Poile, U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame general manager and Archmage of Music City, did it again, inking Ellis to an eight-year, $50 million deal, snipping the metaphorical horsehair and tossing the perilous saber over his shoulder into the Cumberland. So to speak.

The deal may be a year or two too long for a 27-year-old, but it comes without the no-trade clause Ellis openly wanted, and a blueliner of Ellis’ caliber is a bargain at $6.25 million. The man himself told 102.5 The Game (WPRT-FM) that he wanted a fair-but-not-bank-breaking salary to keep the Preds’ core together, echoing Poile’s comments from the postseason press conference in which he said he didn’t intend to “throw the baby out with the bath water.” That was following a disappointing second-round playoff exit that came after a President’s Trophy season.

Thus, the debate among Predators fans returns to its natural state. There will be arguing about whether Ellis and his defensive cohorts Roman Josi, P.K. Subban and Mattias Ekholm are the Four Horseman of Pestilence, Famine, War and Death of whom John the Revelator wrote, or if they are more analogous to J.J. Dillon’s version with Flair, Arn, Ole and Tully (or Luger or Windham or Mr. Perfect). Maybe as staunch defenders, they are instead Butler, McReynolds, Sutherland and Van Devanter, but with Ellis embracing a New Deal (ahem), that comparison falls flat.

This isn’t to suggest the Predators enter the 2018-19 season without pressing questions.

Pekka Rinne is another year older — and in the last year of his contract — and his age showed at times in the playoffs, likely a byproduct of a regular season in which his virtuoso performances made it more difficult for coach Peter Laviolette to manage Rinne’s workload by playing Juuse Saros a little more often. Josi’s deal (the Swiss Superman is a steal at $4 million annually) is up after the 2019-20 season, thus he can go through his own negotiation next summer.

The Predators will wonder whether Kyle Turris, last season’s big trade acquisition, can be the flash of brilliance and steady hand he often embodied during the regular season rather than the disappearing act he performed during the playoffs. Can teen sensation Eeli Tolvanen make strides and be the contributor he was in the KHL against NHL competition?

Most pressing, of course, is what to do with forward Austin Watson, who pleaded no-contest to domestic abuse charges this summer. The league is currently investigating, and the Predators aren’t commenting on his future until there’s a ruling from New York. One wonders what exactly is taking the NHL so long, since Watson, whose girlfriend described him as sometimes “handsy” according to a police report, admitted to the charges in open court. Nevertheless, the NHL’s probe stretches on like the search for Lord Lucan.

But seeing how Poile has locked up all the key parts of the roster for the foreseeable future and kept the championship window wide open, if there is a Scylla and Charybdis to be navigated, be happy that David Poile’s on the tiller.