Latest news with #KentHughes
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Blackhawks Announce IceHogs Hiring Of Head Coach Jared Nightingale
Canadiens: Could There Be A Big Trade In The Works With Minnesota? It's well-documented that Kent Hughes would like to address the Montreal Canadiens' problems down the middle this Summer. With Ivan Demidov now in North America and Patrik Laine unable to produce at even-strength last season, the Habs need a real top-six center who will have the skills to get the best out of the two talented wingers. The Minnesota Wild could help.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Canadiens: Could There Be A Big Trade In The Works With Minnesota?
Canadiens: Could There Be A Big Trade In The Works With Minnesota? It's well-documented that Kent Hughes would like to address the Montreal Canadiens' problems down the middle this Summer. With Ivan Demidov now in North America and Patrik Laine unable to produce at even-strength last season, the Habs need a real top-six center who will have the skills to get the best out of the two talented wingers. The Minnesota Wild could help.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Canadiens: Is Mailloux On The Market?
Canadiens: Could There Be A Big Trade In The Works With Minnesota? It's well-documented that Kent Hughes would like to address the Montreal Canadiens' problems down the middle this Summer. With Ivan Demidov now in North America and Patrik Laine unable to produce at even-strength last season, the Habs need a real top-six center who will have the skills to get the best out of the two talented wingers. The Minnesota Wild could help.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Lane Hutson's next contract with Canadiens is minefield that might need to wait
As the Montreal Canadiens work on organizing their financial structure for the coming seasons in a rising salary-cap world, there are two players' contracts they will need to plan for that are somewhat abstract. The first is Lane Hutson, and the second is Ivan Demidov. The Canadiens are still a year away from needing to worry about Demidov's contract, and he still has a lot to prove. But in Hutson's case, he could sign a new contract as of July 1, and he has already proven a lot at the NHL level. Advertisement He is the type of play-driving, puck-moving defenceman the modern game requires, but he also doesn't fit the archetype of the big, bruising defenceman that playoff hockey requires. To be fair, there aren't really any defencemen who fit both categories, and there are few in the NHL who fit the first category as well as Hutson. But the second category is something that will also surely come into play in the Canadiens' evaluation of what Hutson's next contract looks like, and there are different examples of how to approach his second contract across the NHL. Hutson mentioned in his exit interview with the media that he would like to have his contract settled sooner rather than later, and part of that is because he is frankly uncomfortable talking about it. The longer his next contract remains unsettled, the longer he will have to answer questions about it. But when general manager Kent Hughes was asked about Hutson's contract at his end-of-season news conference, he didn't make it sound like it was an urgent matter that necessarily required immediate attention and made a point of mentioning that this administration waited for the end of Cole Caufield's entry-level contract before negotiating an extension, while Juraj Slafkovský and Kaiden Guhle each signed as soon as they were eligible last summer. 'For sure we'll talk to his agent,' Hughes said. 'I saw that he mentioned he'd like to get his contract settled sooner rather than later. So we'll call his agent and we'll see. But it's not like it's a priority. I find it's important to communicate, to learn what's important to Lane, and from there we'll see if there's a way to agree on a contract. With Cole, we waited to the end of his (entry-level) contract. With Slaf and Guhle, it happened with a year left. So, I think we'll start talking and see where it goes.' Advertisement What happened with Slafkovský and Guhle was that they accepted contract terms that were viewed as somewhat team-friendly by the Canadiens. They were comfortable with the annual average value for Slafkovský ($7.6 million) and Guhle ($5.55 million), even if it represented a bit of a risk. So when Hughes mentions learning 'what's important to Lane,' this is surely what he means. Is Hutson willing to work with the Canadiens on accepting less money and falling in line with their internal salary structure in exchange for the security of a long-term contract? Or will he look to be paid what his production in his rookie NHL season demonstrated he is worth, particularly in the context of a rising salary cap? Looking at this in the most basic terms possible, it is not very difficult to find a group of comparable players to Hutson that we can use as a basis for this exercise. Filtering NHL defencemen who are 26 years old or younger, played at least 50 games and had at least 0.5 points per game last season (remember, Hutson had 66 points in 82 games as a rookie in his age-20 season) gives us a list of 14 players. Of those, three were still on their entry-level contracts: Hutson, Luke Hughes and Jackson LaCombe. That leaves 11 defencemen playing on their second or third contracts to use as a basis for comparison: Rasmus Dahlin, Cale Makar, Moritz Seider, Mikhail Sergachev, Miro Heiskanen, Owen Power, Jake Sanderson, Quinn Hughes, Noah Dobson, Thomas Harley and Evan Bouchard. That might seem like a random order in which to list those players, but it's not. They are listed in order of the cap hits on their current contracts, from a high of $11 million for Dahlin to a low of $3.9 million for Bouchard. That list represents three different approaches to a second NHL contract. The bottom three names on the list — Dobson, Harley and Bouchard — as well as Dahlin and Sergachev, signed two- or three-year bridge contracts out of entry-level, with Dobson and Bouchard due for new contracts this summer and Harley up next summer. All three of them are about to become very rich men. Sergachev signed his third contract in 2022 for eight years at $8.5 million per coming off a three-year bridge deal at $4.8 million a year. Dahlin signed his eight-year, $88 million contract in 2023, also coming off a three-year bridge at $6 million a year. Dobson, Harley and Bouchard each signed bridge deals at or just below $4 million a year, with Dobson signing for three years and the other two for two years. Advertisement Both Makar and Hughes signed six-year deals out of entry-level a couple of months apart in 2021 that walked them right to unrestricted free agency, with Makar's contract buying one UFA year and Hughes' none. They signed for $9 million and $7.85 million a year, respectively, and both can hit the UFA market in 2027. Their next contracts will be monsters, but they also demonstrate a mechanism to keep the cap hit reasonable while locking in prime years. The trade-off is the stress in Vancouver about what Hughes will choose to do when his contract expires, and the Avalanche having to trade away Mikko Rantanen in anticipation of Makar's next contract. The rest of the players on that list — Seider, Heiskanen, Power and Sanderson — signed long-term right out of entry-level. For many reasons aside from this very rudimentary exercise, Sanderson's eight-year contract worth $8.05 million a year signed in 2023 can serve as a basis for comparison here, and demonstrates why this could be a complicated negotiation between Hutson's camp and the Canadiens. It would be easy for Hutson's representatives to argue he is a more productive player than Sanderson and is therefore worth more than him. That's not a knock on Sanderson, of course, since only three defencemen in NHL history had a more productive rookie season than Hutson's 66 points this season. But it would be just as easy for the Canadiens to argue Sanderson fits both categories of defencemen described above, merging a play-driving puck-mover with a big body who can drive playoff success. For instance, no defenceman who played at least 75 minutes at five-on-five in these playoffs had a higher offensive zone start percentage than Hutson's 87.5 percent, according to Natural Stat Trick. In fact, only two skaters were higher, Washington's Dylan Strome and Alex Ovechkin at 97.3 (!) percent. The next highest defenceman was Carolina's Shayne Gostisbehere at 78.6 percent. Sanderson, however, only started 47.62 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone in the playoffs, suggesting his value to the Senators goes beyond his production, which is also evident in Sanderson's predominant role on both the power play and penalty kill. The same argument could be made about Seider ($8.55 million) and Power ($8.35 million), though neither of them played in the playoffs. The reality of the NHL, however, is that offence gets you paid, and Hutson's offence is truly special. Combine that reality with the new financial landscape of the NHL with the salary cap expected to rise to $113.5 million by 2027-28 — which would be the second season of Hutson's next contract — and the conditions are ripe for Hutson to seek a big payday based on what he's already demonstrated and also what he is expected to do offensively in the future. Advertisement Sanderson was in the first year of his new contract this season, and it took up 9.15 percent of the $88 million salary cap. That same percentage in 2026-27 — when the cap is expected to be set at $104 million — would represent an AAV of just over $9.5 million on a long-term contract, and that's assuming Hutson's camp doesn't feel he should be paid more than Sanderson. It should also be noted that of the 11 defencemen we are looking at here, Sanderson was one of only two — Power is the other — who signed his second contract before the entry-level deals expired. So if the Canadiens and/or Hutson decided to wait until next year, it would hardly be unprecedented. Something else Hughes said at his end-of-season news conference seems to apply, when he evaluated Slafkovský's season coming off his big contract extension last summer. 'I think he came in this year with new expectations, a new contract, and also sometimes, when you have success for the first time, sometimes you get here and you're not ready for what's waiting for you,' Hughes said. 'You hear often about a sophomore slump, and I think that's something we'll need to pay attention to as a team and not expect we'll be back next season and it will be easy.' All of that could easily apply to Hutson, though if we're being honest, it doesn't seem all that likely. Hutson's ability to adjust and find creative ways to not only survive at his size but find new and innovative ways to thrive has defined his hockey career. There's no reason to believe that will change. But one possible reason why Hughes seemed unrushed in talking about Hutson's next contract is the list of defencemen we looked at for this basic exercise. It is a group of the best young defencemen in the NHL, one that doesn't include Adam Fox because he was a year too old to be included, even if he is likely to be Hutson's closest comparable in terms of size, impact and production. Fox, it is worth noting, signed his seven-year deal at $9.5 million a year in November of 2021, in the midst of a career-high 74-point season and before the expiry of his entry-level contract. If Hutson were able to follow up his tremendous rookie season with an even better sophomore season, would those comparables change much? He's already put himself in very select company. Advertisement If we look at the contracts signed by Hughes since he arrived, one theme has emerged: He often gets what he wants. He wanted a short term on Sam Montembeault's contract, and that's what he got. He wanted a certain number for Jake Evans' contract, and that's what he got. But most notably, he wanted Caufield's and Slafkovský's second contracts to come in under Nick Suzuki's $7.875 million cap number, and that's what he got in both cases. If Hughes wants that to happen again with Hutson, it seems rather evident it won't happen this summer because Hutson would be leaving a significant amount of money on the table if he agreed to something like that, perhaps as much as $2 million a year, or even more. And the threat of a potential offer sheet didn't impact nine of the 11 defencemen we looked at here signing their second contracts at the end of their entry-level deals. In other words, as Hughes suggested a few weeks ago, there is nothing pressing, and it would appear to be in the best interests of both parties to wait and let things play out a little longer.
Ottawa Citizen
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Ottawa Citizen
What the Puck: Canadiens need to re-sign Lane Hutson, add toughness
Article content This is going to be a defining summer for the Canadiens management team of Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes. Article content The Toronto Maple Leafs had (have?) their Core Four and we all know how that worked out, right? Not so good. Their top hockey boss was shown the door this week and the team is no closer to contending for a Stanley Cup than they were back in 2014 when Brendan Shanahan was named head of hockey operations. Article content Article content The Canadiens have their Core Five, all of whom we got to admire on the power play during the Washington series once Patrik Laine went down with an injury. The Fabulous Five are, of course, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Lane Hutson and Ivan Demidov. Article content Article content That is, indeed, an amazing young core. But now comes the hardest part, that which Leafs management has consistently failed to address — building a support staff to surround the core group. Hockey is the ultimate team sport. It's never about one or two or three guys. It's about the entire team. Look at the Florida Panthers. They have some great players — hello, Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov — but they're the best team in hockey right now because they are the most complete one. (It also helps that, especially in the playoffs, they're also the dirtiest team, but that's a topic for another day.) Article content Article content Article content In other words, Gorton and Hughes have much work to do. So without further ado, here are five things I'd love to see them do this summer. Article content Sign Hutson long term Article content The extraordinary 21-year-old defenceman from Holland, Mich., is under contract until the end of next season, but the Canadiens will be able to sign a new contract with him as early as July 1 this summer, and there is every reason to believe they will ink him to a rich, long-term deal close to that date. My advice? Sign him for eight years at $10 million a year. Don't wait and don't even think of a shorter bridge contract. Article content My Facebook pal Doug Miller nailed it: 'Get bigger and meaner.' Yup. The takeaway from the Capitals series, which the Habs lost 4-1, is the Canadiens got beat up — literally and figuratively. Tom Wilson alone went through the Montreal roster like a one-man wrecking machine. The only toughness on display from the CH came from Josh Anderson, who had an amazing series, and Arber Xhekaj, who only came into the lineup in Game 3 for the usual reasons (as in the coach doesn't trust him).
