Montreal Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson had another stand out performance last night and he did it while playing against rival Quinn Hughes.
For the first time since 2019, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night, and while it was a real team effort that landed the win with three of the four lines being on the ice for the different goals, Lane Hutson once again shone brightly. On a night when he was pitted against the man who prevented him from getting a place on Team USA for the Milano-Cortina Olympics, Quinn Hughes and Hutson showed why they, too, would have deserved a spot.
At just 21 years old, the blueliner is very mature. After playing what he considered a bad game on Saturday night against the Ottawa Senators, despite finishing with three assists, he had a much better game on both sides of the puck. Even though he could have lost his concentration when he was assessed a very questionable penalty, he remained focused, and Martin St-Louis had this to say about what allows him to stay in his game:
I just think it’s his compete level. He didn’t like his game against Ottawa, but it wasn’t because of his compete level. Did he walk away with three assists in Ottawa? You know, made some big plays at key times. If you stick to the process of things versus results, you look to the stats sheet if you didn’t watch the game, you think, you know, Lane Hutson had three assists, he must have been great again. If you watched the game and know the player, you know he didn’t play to his standards. His compete level is always high. I don’t think he gets rattled by much. He’s honest with his performance, too. If you talk to him about specific games and stuff, he knows exactly [what you’re talking about]. To me, that’s why he’s doing such great things at such a young age and growing as a player: he leaves the rink knowing exactly how he played, and there’s a lot of truth behind it. It’s not looking at the scoresheet, “I’m good, I had three assists tonight.” That’s very encouraging to have players like that as a coach.
After having had a tremendous rookie season, Hutson is on pace for 85 points in his sophomore year, which would be just short of a 20-point jump from his output last campaign. A big part of the reason why is just how confident he is now on the ice, and that’s at both ends of the ice. He finished the 2024-25 campaign with a minus-2 rating, and he’s currently at plus-18.
Against the Wild, he scored a goal with a slap shot where it looked like he didn’t have much of an angle, but he still took the shot because he trusts his shot now, much more than he did last season. Speaking about his shot after the game, he explained:
It’s nice to see it go in. I’ve still got some work to do on my shot, but it’s definitely nice to see it go in. [..] Any young rookie coming into the league could be intimidated to shoot, I mean, we have so many great shooters on this team, you want to get the puck to them, but this season I feel a little bit more comfortable, and it’s nice to see them go in.
That goal was his ninth of the season; he leads all defensemen on the team in goals (tied with Noah Dobson). Last season, he only had six goals, which is quite an improvement already. His confidence level also shows in his number of shots in 2024-25; he had a total of 91 shots, now he’s up to 82 in 50 games, on pace for 134 shots, a significant improvement to say the least.
While Hughes spent just over 30 minutes on the ice last night, picked up an assist on a power-play goal and took two shots, it was Hutson who was the most visible of the two, despite spending only 19:29 on the ice. Of course, his ice time wasn’t helped by the four minutes he spent in the box, but as mentioned earlier, at least one of those two calls shouldn’t have been made. When the youngster was asked what was said to him after the phantom penalty call, he replied: “Which one?” Despite disagreeing with the calls, he didn’t let that get to him, and, as St-Louis would say, he played up to his standards.
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