Hello all,
Quiet time before tomorrow's game. Some people are into hockey pools, I guess into hockey polls.
With Hutson's outstanding start of his career. What do you expect to be done for his next contract? He is eligible to sign an extension this summer.
So far it seems like management's MO to get a jump start and sign their guys a year ahead of their deal expiring (Slafkovsky and Guhle).
Will they wait till next year?
Will they go the full 8 years?
Caufield is probably the better comparable because like Hutson he negotiated his way into burning the first year of his ELC by playing a small number of games in year 1. And whether planned or not it meant Caufield, Slaf, and Guhle all got two (injuries aside) full years in the NHL before signing the extension.
So I would expect something similar where they wait until next year so that they've seen him in the NHL for 2 years. Although they may like to get him at Suzuki money, the rising cap as well as his good play will probably mean he breaks Suzuki's cap hit on a 8 year deal.
And let's face it, keeping all our stars/core at under 8m because of Suzuki was never going to last forever, and it was already broken with Laine anyways. The goal of Suzuki as the benchmark wasn't never pay anyone a dime more then Suzuki because he's the best and you have to be better then him to even think of asking for more. It was about instilling the mindset of hey leave some money on the table and we can go out and build a better team, and part of that means treating the players with intelligence and respect and recognizing the cap has risen significantly and 7.8m isn't what it was when Suzuki signed his deal.
In terms of timing one thing to keep in mind is playoffs. As a small guy Lane will always be questioned until he proves he can have success there. It's like the reverse of innocent until proven guilty. If we make the playoffs this year and Lane has a strong performance that probably pushes Hughes into wanting to sign him early, if we miss the playoffs or Lane struggles during them then that probably pushes us into waiting the extra year.