Are the Golden Knights looking to trade Ben Hutton?

While the Golden Knights will be without Alex Pietrangelo moving forward, it appears that another defender could be on the move as well.  David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports that Vegas is trying to move defenseman Ben Hutton.

The 32-year-old has spent the last four seasons with Vegas after signing with them as a depth option early in the 2021-22 season.  After that first year, he has signed a pair of two-year contracts with his current deal having one year left at an affordable price tag of $975K.

Unfortunately for Hutton, his role last season saw him become a sparingly used depth piece.  While he did miss 16 games with an upper-body injury, he was a healthy scratch in 55 others as he played in just 11 games during the regular season.  He had a pair of assists in those outings, along with 19 blocks in a little over 13 minutes of ice time per game.  Hutton also didn’t see any action in the playoffs.

For his career, Hutton has played in 520 career NHL games with five different teams, spanning over parts of ten seasons.  The bulk of that came with Vancouver when he was used in a top-four role for good chunks of the four years he spent with them.  He has 124 points and 670 blocks in those outings with an ATOI of over 18 minutes per game, largely skewed from his time with the Canucks.  Over his four seasons in Vegas, Hutton has averaged 15:38 per game, more reflective of the sixth defender role he has held when he has been in the lineup.

As things stand, Hutton figures to be the seventh defenseman once again for the Golden Knights heading into next season so it appears that Vegas is trying to find a new team that could give him a better opportunity.  But there are several blueliners still in free agency that could conceivably take away some potential landing spots for Hutton in the coming weeks so it wouldn’t be surprising if he ultimately makes it to training camp still with Vegas.

At the moment, the Golden Knights are about $6.8M over the cap, per PuckPedia.  That amount includes Pietrangelo’s $8.8M cap charge, which will land on LTIR, meaning that they have around $2M of flexibility to work with.  Moving Hutton and replacing him with a player at the league minimum would only add $200K of extra room, but every bit of cap wiggle room would help.  Now, the only question is whether a team is willing to trade for Hutton or if he ultimately lands on waivers in the fall if they can’t find a trade for him and want to create that small increase in cap space.