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“If Lane Hutson gets offered Jake Sanderson’s contract, maybe he’d be interested.”
Félix Forget
“If Lane Hutson gets offered Jake Sanderson’s contract, maybe he’d be interested.”
Credit: Getty Images
Lane Hutson had an exceptional 2024-25 season. The habs’ diminutive defenseman, who collected 66 points this season (and added five more in the playoffs), is the favorite to win the Calder Trophy, which will be awarded next week.

Hutson, Macklin Celebrini and Dustin Wolf are the three finalists.

But that’s not the only big event we’ll be following in connection with Hutson over the next month. It should be remembered that the defenseman, who is still under contract (at less than $1 million) for 2025-26, will be able to sign a contract extension as early as July 1.

The popular feeling right now is that we shouldn’t necessarily expect him to sign such a pact this summer. After all, it’s in both the player’s and the team’s interest to be patient in this matter… but there’s also a world in which Hutson wants to sign long-term this summer to get it over with, even if he wouldn’t be maximizing his value that way.

On a recent episode of The Chris Johnston Show, Johnston discussed the defender’s case… and said this:

If Hutson is offered the same contract as Jake Sanderson, maybe he’ll be interested. – Chris Johnston

For those less familiar with Sanderson’s pact, the defenseman has just completed the first year of an eight-year deal that pays him… $8.05 million a year.

And we all agree that a contract like that would please quite a few people in Montreal, especially with the cap set to skyrocket over the next few years.

Johnston later reminded us, however, that the defenseman also needs to be patient if he wants to fetch $10 million or more per year, and he also mentioned the idea of a transition contract. Now, if he’s open to signing for $8 million a year (or, for the sake of the exercise, a little more than that, given the rising salary cap), the Habs would be well advised to settle this matter quickly.

It would secure the services of one of the NHL’s best offensive defensemen for the next nine years (the last year of his entry-level contract and the eight years of the big contract) at a salary not too far off Nick Suzuki’s… and with the cap quickly topping $100 million, Hutson would cost less than 10% of the team’s payroll.

He’d still have to be interested… but that’s up to Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton to sit down with him and sell the idea.


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