The summer is almost and its end and Kent Hughes has done tremendous work to keep the Habs moving forward. As it stands, they have a far better team now than they did at the outset of the 2024-2025 season. The only bit of business he has left is signing Lane Hutson to a long term contract extension. Each team has its own philosophy when its comes to locking up star RFAs. Lately, we've seem some teams struggle to come to terms on a contract with star RFAs as they try to get them on a bridge deal to prove that their early career success was not a fluke and keep their respective caps at a reasonable level. This does have merit as teams don't want to risk being saddled with a long contract which will handcuff them longterm. Not Kent Hughes.
So far, Kent Hughes pays his star RFAs early so that he does not need to break the bank later on. This can be risky, but one thing Hughes has proven is he is incredibly intelligent, professional and intentional.
He signed Suzuki to an 8 year deal worth 63 million at 7,875,00 per season in 2022. When he signed him, the deal was good, now it looks amazing. Suzuki is a potential team Canada Olympian and has established himself as a great centre who can play in any situation.
He signed Caufield to a 62 million, 8 year, 7,800,000 deal in 2023. Again, this deal looks very good as Cole keeps improving his game and is also a potential Olympian on the US team.
One of my favourite deals, he got Guhle signed to a 6 year 33 million, 5,550,00 contract. This deal is awesome because as it stands, he's worth every penny as long as he stay healthy, and he seems to only be getting better. I really think he's going to play above this deal for the duration of the contract, much like Draisaitl when he was making 6 million a year.
Slafkovský signed an 8 year, 60,800,00 8 year deal in 2024. This one still needs time, but it kicks in this year, and it appears Slav is coming into his own. If he can get a season of 70 points this year and maintain that or grow, this will be a great deal.
Overall, this strategy has paid off, as Hughes avoids any ambiguity with the cap long term and he pays the right people. What I love about the management group of Gorton, Hughes and St-Louis is that they are highly intelligent, professional people and they know hockey. Their strength is their ability to project legit long term talent. So this brings us to Lane Hutson.
Hughes is obviously going to use this strategy with Hutson, by attempting to get him to sign a max 8 year deal (especially since the new cba will bring that down to 7 years) and on a deal that will have the player over playing his contract.
What makes this situation unique is that Hutson is already one of the most exciting players in the league having won the Calder and setting records for rookie defensemen. Hutson does not exactly need to sign a deal that will have him overplaying his contract later on à la Draisaitl, as there is really no question that Hutson is going to be a star in the league for a long time despite the brass at USA hockey forgetting to send him an invite to camp. He's already put himself in a very high salary bracket and can make himself the highest paid D in the league only after one year of NHL experience. Talking off the top of my head, Hughes would probably attempt to sign him to an 8 year 80 million dollar deal, but Lane and his agent realize that he's probably worth more.
I watch a lot of Oilers hockey and Evan Bouchard is a stud. But if he's worth 10.5 than Lane is worth more. Hutson is able to control a hockey game and his IQ is off the charts. Also, if Hutson signs a shorter term deal, like 3-4 years at 9-10, he could sign a massive deal easily worth 13-15 million a year when the time comes. So this is a tough situation. If Hughes wants cap clarity for the foreseeable future (7-8 years), he might need to offer 11-12 million per season or even more to sign him now to a max contract.
Hughes has the right philosophy, and will inevitably make the right deal, but I don't think it will be a dream deal at 8-10 million per for 8 years. But I've been wrong before. (not really, but it sounded like the thing to say)