Montreal Canadiens rookie Lane Hutson is giving Habs fans plenty of reasons to smile in a season start that has been rocky to say the least.

There are growing pains in every hockey player's career, and Montreal Canadiens rookie defenseman Lane Hutson is no exception. The young blueliner was minus four in last Tuesday's 7-2 debacle against the New York Rangers. Granted, the plus-minus stat doesn't give the full story, but the minus received is deserved when your mistakes directly lead to a couple of goals. 

Tuesday, when he tried to deke around Reilly Smith even though he was the last line of defense and he got his pocket picked, the goal was his fault, but that's going to happen, and it's normal. What Hutson showed last night against the St. Louis Blues, though, is that he doesn't let mistakes mess with his head. He shakes them off, learns from them, and moves on. 

In last night's 5-2 victory, he picked up an assist, his fifth of the season and the seventh in his first 10 career games, which lands him in very good company in the NHL's history, as shown in the graphic below:

But what caught my eye last night was that Hutson could neutralize the play alone, with three Blues attacking in front of him. The undersized defenseman (as we hear so often) made himself big and became such a nuisance that the play aborted. We often hear that the youngster has defensive issues, but his successful plays in his own zone are seldom celebrated, but there are plenty of them. He's even playing on the penalty kill now, not bad for a player supposedly defensively challenged. 

Last night, he spent 23:49 on the ice, 11 seconds short of spending 24 minutes on the ice for a fourth consecutive game. He's the defenseman who saw the most ice time, over a minute more than Mike Matheson, and this time, it wasn't because the veteran had been hurt or chucked out of the game for coming to the rescue of a fallen teammate. 

Currently, Hutson is fourth in rookie scoring in the league (Matvei Michkov is first). His five points make him the most productive rookie blueliner, one point ahead of New Jersey Devils' Seamus Casey. It's too early to say if the youngster will stay in the Calder Trophy race all year, but so far, so good...

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