On the heels of winning the Calder and a 66 point season, we all knew that Lane Hutson's next contract was going to be an expensive one. However with the recent contracts of Luke Hughes and Jackson LaCombe the table has been set. Both players are going to make 9 million dollars annualy over the next 7-8 years, and the timing could not be more perfect for Hutson.
I already wrote an article on Hutson's next contract where I predicted that Kent Hughes would not be able to sign him to a team friendly 8-10 million a season and these two deals pretty much guaranteed that. With these new deal as benchmarks, I'm thinking Lane is in line for a lot of cheddar chesse. If Hutson has another season simialr to the previous one, he will be able to command somewhere between 11-13 million dollars, like I had predicited prevoiusly. It seems like the new trend is to pay your RFAs early, much like Hughes did with Suzuki, Caufield, Slafkovský and Guhle. With all the new contracts this offseason, 3 of those are bargains and one is fair market value and about to hopefully be a bargain.
Hutson can hopefuly stay healthy and have another dominant season. If pre-season is any indication, that will be the case!