Montreal Canadiens' defenseman Lane Hutson had ten shot attempts in the last game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and it shouldn't really surprise anyone.
In the Montreal Canadiens’ overtime defeat in the second game of their first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Habs blueliner Lane Hutson had 10 shot attempts, six of which made it to Andrei Vasilevskiy’s net.
For a defenseman who only scored six goals on 91 shots in his rookie season, that’s quite a feat. He might have doubled his goal output in his sophomore season, potting 12 goals in 82 games, but he still only took 124 shots. In comparison, right-shot defenseman Noah Dobson scored 12 goals as well, but he took 154 shots. The more you shoot, the better your odds of scoring; it’s simple maths.
All through the season, whenever Martin St-Louis was asked why his players weren’t shooting more, he would reply that he didn’t want to overcoach his players and that they are the talent to make the reads and decide for themselves whether they should shoot or not.
After practice at the Bell Centre on Friday morning, Hutson was asked why he had 10 shot attempts in Game 2 and whether it was asked of him to shoot more. He replied:
Anytime you get a chance to get a puck on net, it’s not a bad thing. Definitely saw it more last game than the first game, yeah, I think it’s a good thing to get some shots on. (…) I mean, kind of a little bit of both, guys obviously want me to shoot when I’m in a good spot to shoot, and I feel like we needed to get more down, hopefully open up other things, not just in that game but also down the stretch.
As for St-Louis, when he was asked about the same topic, he replied that Hutson was just making good reads. While St-Louis might not have told Hutson to shoot more this season, the 22-year-old has certainly been coached about his shots nonetheless. Not being St-Louis, but he had put in a lot of time on the ice with Adam Nicholas, taking part in various exercises. When the group working with Nicholas got too big, he would go to the other ice sheet to take more shots without having to wait for his turn. He also spent countless hours perfecting his one-timers with Ivan Demidov, and that worked paid off as well; it all upped his confidence.
Now, in the playoffs, Hutson says that when he has space, it’s always a good thing to send pucks to the net, and it’s not all that surprising that he’s seeing more space. Tampa Bay has been so busy trying to neutralize the Canadiens’ first line at even strength that it has left more space and created more opportunities for the other players to take shots. Whenever the stakes are high, it’s obvious that Hutson raises his game from a notch or two, and you can see how much he wants to be the man, the difference maker out there, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’s now taking more shots. It was only a matter of time until he got there.
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