Will Lane Hutson ever win the James Norris Trophy as the league's top defenseman? Not everyone agrees...
On Wednesday night’s episode of The Sick Podcast, Tony Marinaro and Brian Wilde discussed whether Montreal Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson would ever win the Norris Trophy. The Global reporter doesn’t believe Hutson will ever win the Norris for one main reason: it’s so hard for small guys to get respect.
While Wilde does have a point about it being hard for small guys to earn respect, especially after both Hutson and Cole Caufield were left off Team USA for the Olympics, when it comes to NHL Trophies, it’s hard for anyone to get respect.
For instance, look at Nick Suzuki: he won the Frank J. Selke Trophy this past season as the league’s top defensive forward, but it took him years to seriously enter the conversation. At times, voters for the few NHL trophies get set in their ways and keep going back to the same players, even when new players are worth considering. The fact that Suzuki finally won that prize in a year when Aleksander Barkov didn’t play and in which he earned high praise from Team Canada coach Jon Cooper is hardly surprising. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have won it, not at all, but I'm wondering whether it would have happened if Barkov had been playing and Cooper hadn't spoken about him at the Olympics.
It wasn’t easy for Suzuki to force his way onto Canada’s lineup, just like it’s not easy for Hutson with Team USA, but there comes a time when a player’s body of work forces the GMs’ hands. Hutson has spent his whole career showing naysayers wrong. He’s probably fought against the “small player” tag from the moment he laced them up, and it lit a fire under him. It’s that same fire that makes him chase opponents relentlessly when he makes a mistake and turns the puck over.
Hutson’s turn will come; it won’t be right away, but it will come. Chances are, though, if you ask him about the possibility of winning the Norris Trophy, he’ll tell you that’s not the one he’s aiming for. The one trophy he and every Canadiens player want is the Stanley Cup, as it should be.
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