An elite handful of hockey’s greatest defensemen at this time as soon as dominated the American collegiate circuit earlier than taking the NHL by storm and cementing themselves as the way forward for the place.
Inside the final half decade, the likes of Cale Makar, Adam Fox and Quinn Hughes have every developed their respective craft in faculty, then virtually seamlessly transitioned to the professionals and appeared proper at residence.
Lane Hutson, a freshman at Boston College and a 2022 second-round decide by the Montreal Canadiens, is trying like he is subsequent in line.
The 19-year-old has rapidly made a reputation for himself as some of the thrilling prospects within the sport, registering 38 factors in 29 video games. His 1.31 factors per recreation common is nice sufficient for seventh within the nation, up there with the likes of 2022 lottery picks Logan Cooley and Jimmy Snuggerud.
In his first faculty hockey season, Hutson is doing issues few others have executed earlier than. He’s an enormous motive why the Boston College Terriers rank fifth within the nation in targets per recreation (3.9) and complete targets scored (117). His 0.97 assists per recreation rank third within the nation, behind fellow Canadiens prospect Sean Farrell and projected 2023 top-3 decide Adam Fantilli.
Hutson has additionally cleaned up the slate of particular person awards thus far this season, incomes Hockey East Defender of the Month in October and November, Hockey East Participant of the Week and Hockey East Rookie of the Week on two events.
The very first thing you discover when watching Hutson play is his consolation with the puck on his stick. His head is all the time up, scanning the ice and adjusting his stride to maneuver into house and create probability after probability in each the impartial and offensive zones. Paired with fast palms and elite puck-handling, Hutson is pretty much as good because it will get when strolling the blue line.
“From the purpose, he’s the NCAA’s most dynamic, simplest, most inventive activator, as a result of he is in a position to create benefits for himself,” Elite Prospects’ Mitchell Brown advised Yahoo Sports activities Canada. “These fast-twitch palms, the nonstop deception, the fast edges, the adjustments of tempo and course; he is all the time deceiving his opponents.”
Hutson’s distinctive skillset makes him a difficult prospect to mission on the NHL degree, however his play does evaluate to a few of the league’s most gifted offensive defensemen. His shiftiness from the purpose is harking back to Hughes, whereas his means to maneuver across the offensive zone and select a teammate for a scoring probability is a talent mastered by Fox.
His weaker play in transition, nevertheless, means he doesn’t but possess the total skillset anticipated from a hyper-mobile prime defensemen like Hughes and Fox.
Brown is assured Hutson’s ceiling within the NHL is as a No. 1 offensive defenseman. A lot of that, although, will rely upon how the 19-year-old develops his skating and power to make him a risk in all three zones of the ice.
“It would come all the way down to how a lot the skating improves, getting a stronger, deeper stance to soak up contact and having the ability to actually promote all that shiftiness from the purpose,” Brown stated. “Lots of what he does could be very fast edges, being very evasive and quick, reasonably than massive, slower, extra convincing actions as a result of he cannot do them but as a result of he cannot entry his exterior edges in these methods.”
With how good he is been proper off the bat on the collegiate degree, many hockey followers have been shocked Hutson was solely the 62nd-overall decide of the 2022 NHL Draft. Brown, nevertheless, anticipated the diminutive blueliner to fly underneath the radar.
“At Elite Prospects, we had him forty seventh general. Sadly, I believe that he went within the late second was not shocking,” he defined. “It was not a consequence of his dimension; it was extra a consequence of the skating and that his recreation tended to depend on the identical patterns, which has turned out to not be a difficulty in faculty.”
Regardless of his high-end talent being evident early as he tore up the US Nationwide Crew Growth Program, scouts have been reluctant to mission him going too excessive within the draft attributable to his 5-foot-8, 160-pound body. Ideally, the trendy NHL defenseman is a clean skater, but in addition sufficiently big to deal with the bodily facet of the sport. Whereas it is extremely unlikely he’ll develop to turn into a towering determine, he has reportedly added a couple of inches to his peak since he enrolled at Boston College, now listed at 5-foot-10 by this system.
It is doubtless Hutson would have been chosen greater within the draft had he been taller, however as The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler places it, the shifty defenseman is as efficient as he’s as a result of of his quick stature.
“I’ve typically been requested simply how excessive he would have gone if he have been 6-foot-2 or 6-foot-3 and the fact is that he wouldn’t in a position to do lots of what makes him so fascinating if he have been,” Wheeler wrote. “He’s a novel participant who makes use of a light-weight (although not highly effective) stride to create entries and exits, weave previous protection, escape stress, and discover or create seams.”
Hutson has starred — and produced — at each degree he is performed at thus far in his younger profession. He registered a complete of 90 factors over two years with the USNTDP, adequate for fourth all-time for defensemen, forward of former standouts like Fox and Hughes. The Michigan native additionally tallied 4 factors in seven video games on the 2023 World Juniors as the US took residence the bronze medal. He is now tearing up the NCAA’s Hockey East convention, and is poised to place up massive numbers within the NHL at some point if he continues on this trajectory.
“This man could possibly be a top-end point-producing defenseman within the NHL, with a ton of highlights alongside the way in which,” Brown stated. “So, not a nasty participant.”
No, not dangerous in any respect.
Stats as of Feb. 24
