This is WAY better than we thought... - MAJOR Lane Hutson contract report

This is way better than we thought as we have a major update on the Lane-Hudson contract situation with an NHL source via a recent article for RG revealing that not only are he and the Montreal Canadiens already in amicable talks about the extension, but how it could come in much less than many of us anticipated. We have to dive into the reports, the specifics of it, and how this could come out to even be a sub-10 million dollar contract. But it's not just contract talk, this Lane-Hudson special. He was ripping one-timers on the Hudson Pro Development Instagram page, and this just gives us a little insight into next year of the power play, the D-pairings. Oh, there's so much great stuff to get into on this episode of Habs Digest, and let's start, let's just start by looking at the pairings here. Well, the power play units specifically, Jesse, because look, when you're ripping one-timers like this, you know, you really just have one thing in mind, and it's ripping these maybe on the one-time side if he's creeping in on the power play. He loves to pinch in when he gets the opportunity. That's one thing he has made clear throughout his career so far. When you see him ripping these shots like this, do you envision this becoming a weapon as soon as this year? We know like the slap shot is not one of his biggest strong suits. He's not a huge guy. He doesn't have a ton of force behind it, but he's ripping these, Jesse. I think that his shot, I think to a lot of people who maybe didn't watch him this year, his shot still gets underrated. It's not a bad shot, and it's looking like it's just getting even better. And he just really needs to use it more, which is what I'm so happy about him putting really an effort to addressing that in the offseason. Like the shot was really like the only bottleneck, the one weakness in his game, okay, other than the size. Yeah, he's not the small guy. He's the guy ripping the slap shots. In the video here, we're just joking, of course. Like out of his 66 points last year, only six of those, Josh, as you know, we have it here on the board, were gold. So if we're looking like that, we know that Lane Hudson, with his great skating, his ability to evade defenders, he can create opportunities for himself. He's going to get in front of the net, but now working on that shot a little bit more, take advantage, and kind of the one time I liked, like not just the wristers, but working on the slap shot. I think that last art in the NHL that I really love to see Hudson working on, like the implications for this are huge. Like Josh, there's a world where I see like Lane Hudson, not just doubling his gold totals from last year. Like I can see him going from six goals to 15 goals very easily. And really just, again, you know, kind of like, it creates this opportunity where it even helps his playmaking even further. He's such a good playmaker again, 60 assists last year, but when he can shoot it more, that's just going to create more opportunities for him to be able to set up other people even more. So just what this means for the Montreal Canadiens though, because we know he wants the puck on his stick when it really matters. But of course, sometimes you got to be the guy to do it yourself all the way there. So again, Lane Hudson working on that to then take advantage of those great opportunities that he's going to get going forward, more goals for this team, I think could be a huge game changer moving forward. I think that's such a good point too. Like when they got to respect the shot a little more, those little shifty dekes that, I mean, he did a lot this year, but defense started to off him a little bit and he maybe didn't do him as much as the season went on in favor of the smarter play. But now if people have to force themselves to get closer to him, that just gives him the further advantage. So it's not even about if he can get up to 15, 20 goals, it's about the threat of the shot, which just makes him so much more dynamic. And you're absolutely right, Jesse, like wouldn't shock me to see him easily get 10 plus goals this year. Remember it took him so long to get his first one, but he kind of got rolling as the season went on. Again, playmaking is his best attribute right now, but having a lethal shot, I mean, I don't know if it's lethal yet, but it's sure looking pretty good. Once he can make this into a strong suit of his game, oh, it's just going to change the whole outlook of the Habs power play, the Habs deep airings. It's going to be great. Leave some thoughts on Lane Hudson Ripham one timers down below. And you know what? We might be seeing these for many years to come because his contract has been a hot topic here. The lane train wants to leave the station with a bag and who can blame him? I mean, the guy deserves all the money in the world. Maybe not all the money. We'll have to see what Jeff Molson says and what Ken Hughes and Jeff Gorton say. But what we do know, Jesse, is that reporting, let's just start with this here. Both parties and NHL source via rg.org. This article linked down below, there's a lot in there that we didn't touch on. I suggest you please go read it. There's a very interesting things. For example, how Lane Hudson can't be off a sheet in next year, which does affect how much he might be willing to pay him. Please go check it out, but we'll give you some of the important stuff here saying both parties are in a good space and there's a good amount of mutual respect, but just very little rush. I think it gets done eventually and on the longer term because, you know, we'll get into some of the comparables in a second, but just hearing this, Jesse, makes me so happy because we've been talking about, oh, you know, like, what's it going to sign? Is it going to be this year? Is it going to be next year? I hope they're on the same page. The fact that they're on the same page and the NHL source says it's going to be in the longer term and they are actively negotiating. I feel like that alone is enough to get me excited, let alone the numbers that we'll get into here in a minute. Absolutely. It is such great news because we want the long term deal with Lane Hudson. We want to secure him for as long as possible as we can really have him. The fact that he likes Montreal and obviously we like him is a dream scenario right now. He just got voted. He was the only rookie to be put in the top 20 for defenseman here in the NHL. You feel like the way that he sees the game at that next level, is this going to allow him to really just continue climbing up that list? But again, like Josh, it's just like a dream situation when you have a player like Lane where he has the skill that he has, but then also like just that great like personality where he's putting the team first and he'll probably take like a little bit of a team friendly deal, maybe leave a little bit on the table just to help. Like how lucky are we like to deserve such great players like this, like coming in the organization right now, like left, right and center. Josh, like yeah, this over the moon by hearing that probably looking like we're going to be able to secure something long term. Absolutely and like lucky is this. Well, I mean, it's really all we can describe it as because this team has just been in such an amazing place and to just elaborate there on the actual numbers like the NHL source was talking about how people have been talking about a Hudson-Dobson comparable, right? Like you said, he was 19th in the NHL Network's top 20 defenseman. Unbelievable. Above Brock Faber. But he said Dobson's at a different point in his career than Hudson. Not to say that one is better than the other, I should say, but in the world of RFA years, which is what we'd be buying up for Lane Hudson because he's still in RFA for like four more years after this, they're worth substantially less than UFA years, which we had to buy up for Dobson because every UFA year you buy up is a year that player could theoretically test free agency and get more money, especially with this rising cap. Now we're seeing players like Matthew Nyes, for example, signing these six year deals so that they can hit free agency earlier in a cap situation where they'll get more money in the future. But teams generally have to Hudson doesn't really have a large amount of leverage. As we mentioned, his class of RFA is a bit rarer. And again, you can see it in the RG article. They say he's not eligible for an offer sheet next year, but outside of his excellent on his play simply because he's not eligible for offer sheets and he doesn't have any arbitration rights. His contract comparable wouldn't be Dobson. It would be more like Jake Sanderson, Brock Faber, or Quinn Hughes. Jesse, all three of those guys signed for under 10% of their team's cap around eight to nine, eight to nine and a half percent in Quinn Hughes's case. If we look at Scotia stats projection, they have Lane Hudson there around that 10%, 10.5%. What we're hearing now is like, it's not crazy for him to be a sub 10% of the con 10% of the cap contract. And if that's the case, we could realistically be looking at something between nine and $10 million. I know you've been saying sub 10 for a while, but that might actually be a reality at this point. And it's for that reason, Josh, I'm going to come with a hot take right now that Hudson's actually going to come below Dobson right now, even though that the cap has went up and everything's kind of in flux in the league right now, there hasn't really been like that ceiling set with a player in his situation signing that longer. Some people are opting for a little bit shorter term deals. Seems like we're going to be able to get them on a longer term deal. And I just see like just the type of player that he is, again, kind of, I think probably around the 9.3, if we look at comparables, like for me, Hudson's better than a Sanderson, but maybe he's not going to combine that like command that 9.5% of the cap that Quinn Hughes asked for, bring me to that 9.3% of the cap, which is really again, 9.4 million is where I'm locking it in for the Hudson deal. Is it because he deserves more? Like he does deserve more. Absolutely. I just think it's because he's a sweetheart. He loves the team. It's probably a lot of like goodwill that the Habs have done to him. And the reasoning as well, well, we're probably get this better deal. There's a little bit of a context to I would say that's important. The reason for this is just like slap and Cole took a little bit less than Suzuki. They're kind of as a respect sort of thing. I think that that'll kind of be part of it as well. Like Hudson knows that he's coming in, but this is a guy that's got respect for the vets in spades, whether it's Madison, anybody else, like as he should really. And I think for that reason, it just speaks to his character that for the vibes and probably for just the continuancy that he'll probably want to go just a little bit less than Dobson knowing that it's not, you know, that he's just buying up RFA years. That being said, he'd be fully justified to go out and ask for much more. I just feel like we're going to get a really great deal here, which just opens up the doors to making so much more incredible things happen. Like Ted Hughes is going to have this spot. Like again, when we're talking about the 2C, if we just wait a little bit too, which might be part of this conversation, he's going to have cash to add a monster to this team. If we really want to, like a guy making 10 plus million, realistically, we'd be able. And I would say you probably would want to make that move of making that big splash going forward. So just with this kind of opens up for years to come, the Montreal Canadians being ranked according to TSN recently as one of the teams with the brightest futures, not just in hockey, but all of sports right now, Lane Hudson being a big part of that. And obviously his contract soon to come. Absolutely. And hey, you know, if Hudson takes a nice little contract, that guy who's going to command 10 plus, hey, who knows this guy here might be signing a $15 million deal if all things go right. So bringing it, it's not crazy, right? It's not crazy to say that, you know, you're not, it's not ridiculous anyway, but you know, there's so many amazing things coming for the half anything under 10, I think is going to be a bargain, especially with the rising cap. Like if he signs for that long, which I'm thinking he probably will. I hope so. If he signed for seven, eight years at under 10 million with the rising cap, that's going to look on believable. And if it comes in under Dobson, we'll be celebrating like crazy. Can't wait to see what's happening. They're on good terms. They're negotiating. What do you think about this? I feel like this is just better news than we could have anticipated. Leave your thoughts down below. Cause that'll do it for this episode of Habs digest. If you enjoy leave a like comment, subscribe to the channel. Thank you for tuning in every single day, all off season long. I'm Josh Goss, my co-host, Jesse Poirier. We'll catch you in the next one.