Canadiens: Hutson Overtakes The Pocket Rocket

Lost in the fact that the Montreal Canadiens beat the Dallas Stars 5-2 and had a perfect 4-0-0 road trip without their captain was the fact that Lane Hutson has once again written his name into the storied franchise history book. With a secondary assist on Alex Newhook’s first goal of the game, Hutson blew by Henri “the Pocket Rocket” Richard for the most helpers by a player under 23 years old in franchise history.

That assist was the 136th of his young career, and it came in his 179th game. Also, since his birthday is on February 14, he still has 46 games to go before he turns 23. Who knows how many helpers he’ll rack up until then.

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If you look at the list of most assists before turning 23, Hutson now leads with 136, Richard has 135, and another familiar face sits in third: Juraj Slafkovsky with 119. Unless he has a disastrous season, the Big Slovak should also overtake the Pocket Rocket and perhaps even scare Hutson. Slafkovsky won't turn 23 until March 30th, meaning he still has 65 games to improve his total. Last season, he racked up 43 assists in 82 games; on 65 games, that’s a 34-assist pace. However, so far this season, he’s picking up 0.54 assists per game. If he maintains that rhythm over the 65 games before his birthday, he should add another 35 assists, bringing him to 154 before he’s 23.

Will that be enough to overtake Hutson? That’s far from certain, but just the fact that two members of this young core will be in the first two spots is impressive enough. They may still be joined by Ivan Demidov as well; the Russian wonder is only 20 years old, and he’s already got 45 assists to his name. Of course, health and games played will matter, but it’s easy to see him follow the same career trajectory. The future is still very bright in Montreal.

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