UPDATE: Eric Staal signs a three-year deal with the Minnesota Wild

Eric Staal is moving closer to home.

The veteran centre has signed a three-year contract with the Minnesota Wild on the first day of NHL free agency.

The deal is worth a reported $3.5 million a season.

Staal, the former captain of the Carolina Hurricanes, was dealt to the New York Rangers in March at the trade deadline.

He said the promise of top-line minutes is what drew him to the Wild.

“(It’s) just the chance and the opportunity is something I need and want and I’m looking forward to it,” Staal told TSN on Friday, noting the Western Conference team has been to the playoffs recently – four straight years – and already has a lot of great players in the lineup, including forward Zach Parise and defenceman Ryan Suter.

“I definitely had (interest) from a few different teams and there was some opportunity in a lot of different spots. But Minnesota was a team on my radar for a little while now and it felt like a kind of a hole and a spot I could see myself fitting and playing with some real good wingers that are already there.”

Staal, who collected 39 points in 83 games split between the Hurricanes and Rangers in 2015-16 – just six points in 20 games with the Rangers before being held off the score sheet in a five-game, first-round loss to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins – said it was discussions with Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher and new coach Bruce Boudreau the convinced him St. Paul, Minn. was the right fit.

“It was one of those things I felt good about and comfortable with and excited for, and that’s what I wanted,” he told TSN. “I want that excitement and that energy to be there and I’m looking forward to the start of next year.”

Staal spent the better part of his first dozen NHL seasons in Raleigh, N.C., where he helped lead the Hurricanes to a Stanley Cup win in 2006.

But the writing was on the wall this past season that his time in Carolina was about to come to an end, his pending unrestricted free agency status forcing the team to send him to Broadway, where he joined younger brother Marc, a defenceman with the Rangers.

He left behind another brother, Jordan, with the Hurricanes, a team that hadn’t made the playoffs since 2009.

Staal, a gold medalist with the Canadian Olympic men’s hockey team in 2010, had seen his offensive skills deteriorate the past two seasons.

It’s been a whirlwind past six months, he told the network.

“It’s been different. You spend as long as I did in the place and you envision being there until the end of your career. For a lot of different reasons, it didn’t happen, it didn’t work out,” he said. “I come to this day and for me it was about opportunity and joining an organization and a team that is willing and will do whatever it takes to win.

“That’s on and off the ice. Minnesota does that and has done that for a while. I’m looking forward to the chance to get back to the game I know I can play and it’s just going to be a lot of fun.”

In 929 career games over 12 seasons, the former No. 2 overall pick (2003) has 325 goals and 781 points. He won a Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2006.