Some other options that I've seen ranked in the 14 and later range that I'd be happy with...
Radim Mrtka
Kashawn Aitcheson
Benjamin Kindel
Lynden Lakovic
Then there's the "you can't win the Hart if your team misses the playoffs" argument.
Hutson was awesome, especially for a rookie dman. I don't think he was close to Nick though. Of course, when you barely make the playoffs, there are going to be a bunch of guys that you could say they would...
I'm not saying he's right or wrong... but Nick was absolutely the most valuable player to the Habs, and it wasn't close. Was he more valuable to the Habs than Helly was to the Jets? Probably not, but I can see where someone may have thought he was. I see he had nine 5th place votes, certainly...
The Hart is always the toughest award. It's tough to quantify who is the most valuable to their team. We all want to see the best player to win it... but what happens when a team has 2 of the top 5 players in the world? Should either one of them ever win?