I think Hutton is playing his way off this team. The longer he keeps this up, the higher his asking price will be and I'm not sure that the Blues can/will give him anything close to his market value. He is squarely in $2.5-$3 mil per year territory right now and will stay there even if he regresses some (as should be expected). The Panthers gave Reimer 5 years at $3.4 mil per year for some reason. The Jets gave Mason 2 years at $4.1 mil per to solidify their goaltending (even though the intention clearly wasn't for him to be a backup). The Hurricanes gave Darling 4 years at $4.15 mil per based solely on his backup work in Chicago. Bernier, Elliott, Lack, Neuvirth, Nillsson, Chad Johnson, and Mike Condon all make between $2.4 and $2.75 mil per year. Excluding the Elliott/Neuvirth situation, those are all guys who were clearly not signed to compete for a starting job, but were signed as reliable backups with 35 game ability. That's exactly what Hutton is and he is looking like arguably the best pure backup in the league right now.
It will likely take $2.5 mil or more per year on at least a 2 year deal to extend Hutton. This is likely his last stab at a multi-year, decent money deal so I doubt he passes that up for a one year deal unless it is a huge overpayment (which we also can't do). As great as he has been for the last 12 months, I'm not sure that makes sense given the clear desire to have Allen start 65+ games a year, our goalie pipeline, our overall cap structure and our recent ability to make a rotating group of backups look great. I have a lot of faith that Army can identify a UFA for $1.2-$1.4 mil that will succeed in our system if we want a veteran backup instead of Husso/Binnington. That's how we got Hutton in the first place and I wouldn't be surprised if we try to do it again.
not bad 
