TORONTO — Before Jakub Dobes stopped John Tavares, and even before Alexandre Texier pulled off a move no one—least of all Dennis Hildeby—saw coming, Lane Hutson capped one of his most dominant performances of the season without even hitting the score sheet.
The 21-year-old’s fingerprints were all over this win for the Montreal Canadiens over the Toronto Maple Leafs, and you’d have never found them if you didn’t go dusting for them.
Usually, they’re unmissable. The dynamic defenceman is a highlight factory, with his fakes, dangles, spins and passes consistently feeding the hockey algorithm its shorts.
But Hutson doesn’t get enough credit for the simple stuff he does in the shadows, for the time and space he steals away with his skating and positioning, for the stick checks that enable him to poke away controlled pucks, and for the net-front and corner battles he more often wins than loses. It was rarely the talk of his Calder Trophy-winning season—over which he made history from an offensive standpoint—and it probably hasn’t generated the buzz it’s deserved through the 27 games the Canadiens have played so far this season.
Do you remember the first one? A 5-2 loss at Scotiabank Arena, which was followed by Hutson blaming himself for a defensive mistake he arguably didn’t even make.
He’s turned that into a distant memory with the way he’s played since.
The way Hutson played on this Saturday night marked what coach Martin St. Louis referred to as the best defensive effort the Canadiens have had all season.
We weren’t the only ones to notice.
“He competes, he plays much bigger than his size, he wins a lot of battles, anticipates really well, steals pucks,” said St. Louis. “And then, for some reason, he always has gas in the tank to do what’s next after he steals a puck, and that’s amazing. He’s fun to watch, fun to coach.”
You can imagine how Hutson’s teammates feel about sharing the ice with him.
But if you can’t, here’s Juraj Slafkovsky on the subject.
“He is unbelievable,” Slafkovsky said. “It doesn’t matter how caught up he seems to get; he always grinds back so hard to break up plays. He plays physical, and it goes undercover because he’s not a big guy. But he plays so physical. He has a great stick, and he just seems to win all the pucks.”
No player on the Canadiens had it on their stick more against the Leafs than Hutson did.
According to SportLogiq, he didn’t just lead in offensive-zone possession (1:08), he also had a game-high 12 controlled zone exits.
And while it was Nick Suzuki who brought the puck deep into Toronto territory before Cole Caufield scored the power-play goal Ivan Demidov and Slafkovsky assisted on in the ninth minute of the second period, Hutson led the game with 10 controlled entries.
Combine it all—the possession time, the controlled exits and entries, and the 21 points he’s generated—and it all starts with strong defence.
None of it is typically highlighted, but it was impossible to ignore Hutson winning battles over Ottawa’s Brady Tkachuk, Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele and Toronto’s Auston Matthews over the past week. They’re all players who tower above him, but none of them could get the better of him nearly as much as they wanted to when they went head-to-head with him.
From last season to this one, it was the area of Hutson’s game that required the most work.
But moments before saying on Saturday morning that it was the area of the game he’d gained much more comfort in, a seemingly benign response to a question about how he spent his free night in Toronto, Friday only further confirmed to what extent he’s devoted to always doing what must be done.
“(I spent it) just waiting for today,” Hutson said.
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Texier, who came to the Canadiens on a prorated, one-year contract on Nov. 23, just hours after his contract with the St. Louis Blues was torn up, loved what he saw from Hutson against the Leafs on Saturday and has also been inspired by what he’s seen from him on every practice day over the last two weeks.
“As soon as I got there, I just saw him and Demidov on the ice for three-four hours a day,” said the 26-year-old. “It’s crazy. They just live hockey, eat hockey. Everything’s about hockey.
“It’s just fun to watch (Hutson). He’s always working on his game, always in the gym.”
As Slafkovsky put it: “Lane’s motor never stops.”
It was a driving force in this Canadiens win.
They had generated 3.42 expected goals to Toronto’s 1.99, they spent three more minutes than the Leafs on offence, they out-shot the Leafs by 11, they out-chanced them from the slot 17-11, they had nearly twice as many cycle chances, and they generated eight rushes to Toronto’s four.
But it was what the Canadiens did without the puck that enabled all that.
“I think the defensive part of our game tonight is the best I’ve seen, to be honest,” said St. Louis. “We didn’t give them much.”
Over nearly 25 minutes of ice time, Hutson barely gave away anything.
That’s been the case more often than not since the start of the season, even if it’s flown under the radar.
