How the Canadiens Put Hutson in the Best Position to Succeed in 2026-27 – The Hockey Writers – Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens find themselves in an enviable position regarding defenseman Lane Hutson. There’s of course his eight-year, $70.8 million contract, which ranks among the best on the team (and in the league). Just to start with, there’s also how the Habs have one of the best young defensemen in the game today, but on top of all that they also have the luxury of being able to sacrifice some of Hutson’s ability to elevate the games of others.

Last season, on his most-common pairing, Hutson, a left-handed defenseman, played on the right with the left-handed Jayden Struble, the team’s seventh defenseman for all intents and purposes (59 games played). While there had been a statistical basis to play Hutson with Struble, moving forward it might make more sense to play one of the game’s top emerging talents on his natural side, where he, as a theoretical James Norris Memorial Trophy candidate, and consequently the team are more likely to find success.

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That’s just common sense in many ways, where, in many aspects of life in general, if you have an advantage over others, you devote your resources to amplifying it rather than propping up weaknesses. Think an economic sector to promote trade with other nations, not that the Canadiens should trade Hutson or anything. Okay, not the best example.

In fact, the Canadiens have been down this road before, recently too. It admittedly didn’t go so well, either. Back when goalie Carey Price was the team’s best player, ex-general manager Marc Bergevin seemingly did everything he could to insulate him, to a fault. There’s a reason Bergevin is no longer at the helm of the team. There are many actually, but a big one is how, in a sport where the most goals wins, he spent a great deal of time ensuring the puck stayed out of the team’s net by acquiring as many defensive-oriented defensemen as possible. The result was a general inability to get out of their own zone.

Granted, there were flashes of success, as the Canadiens reached the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, but, ultimately, they fell well short against the champion Tampa Bay Lightning, with a team that wasn’t nearly deep enough in front of Price. Now, ironically, one of the team’s best players is a defenseman. However, and this is a key, he’s a game-breaking defenseman who drives play the other way. In a world in which teams need just adequate goaltending to win it all, assuming the team itself is strong enough, Hutson is more so a game-changer. At least that’s how he should be seen by management, as current-general manager Kent Hughes continues to build his team and head coach Martin St. Louis continues to ice it how he deems fit.

Whereas the Canadiens had a similar player in P.K. Subban on the same team as Price at one point, Bergevin obviously went in the other direction, trading the former for Shea Weber, who was older and less mobile on the back end. The trade itself may have been a wash, as both the Habs and Nashville Predators reached a championship series when all was said and done, but possessing a young core that featured Price in net, Subban on defense and Max Pacioretty up front amounted to a huge missed opportunity. This is now an opportunity to do it right.

Option No. 1: Hutson and Dobson

Put simply, the Canadiens should do everything in their power to make Hutson as effective as possible, and that means playing him on his natural side. Even St. Louis sees it that way, how playing Hutson on the left creates more offensive avenues for him. That’s maybe why, moving down from Struble, his next two most-common partners (Alexandre Carrier and Noah Dobson) were righties, with Dobson figuring in as his top partner in the postseason, which is significant if for no other reason than how the latter missed a third of the team’s playoff games due to injury.

Maybe the Canadiens only went down that road because Dobson’s offensive game had been compromised due to his broken hand, forcing him to lean more into the defensive side. However, during the regular season, when Dobson had been healthy, they undeniably still worked well together, with the team scoring 26 of 37 goals when they were on the ice together at even strength (per HockeyStats.com). So, it’s something worth considering.

However, unless St. Louis is willing to split up his most used pairing of Mike Matheson (left) and Dobson (right), which played more than two times as much as his second-most-used one (Struble and Hutson; 1,109:47 vs. 488:00), it’s a moot point. So, what options do the Canadiens have? If the Habs are serious about keeping Hutson on the left, there are a few.

There’s Dobson of course, which would mean dropping Matheson down the lineup, potentially to the third pairing, which could work well in terms of exploiting the bottoms of opposing teams’ line-ups. That would also enable the Canadiens to play the left-handed Kaiden Guhle on his natural side, beside the right-handed Carrier. You would then platoon players like Struble, Arber Xhekaj and prospect David Reinbacher in and out of the lineup in that final spot beside Matheson.

Hutson on the Left Is the Right Move

There’s also Carrier, who, as previously mentioned, did spend significant time playing with Hutson last season, but, seeing as the former is 5-foot-11 (174 pounds), the Canadiens might be wise to stay away from making that a permanent partnership. The reasoning should be obvious just by looking at them side by side together (5-foot-9, 162 pounds).

There’s also Door No. 3: Reinbacher, the right-handed defenseman the Canadiens picked at No. 5 overall in 2023; If the Habs can justify playing Struble with Hutson, they should be able to do the same with Reinbacher, a player in whom many saw as his potential permanent partner at the time based on their complementary styles, anyway. The difference is, they’d be able to play Reinbacher on the right, his natural side, without issue.

Sure, there will be growing pains. With just two NHL games under his belt three years after having been drafted, Reinbacher is far from proven at this juncture, but… again Struble. It really just further reinforces how much of an outlier Hutson, who is only eight months older than Reinbacher, really is. Hutson is special. He makes everyone around him better. You’d just think the Canadiens would ensure they tap into that as much as possible. There’s little stopping them really. Getting a player like Hutson is the hardest part. Winning itself can be plenty hard too, admittedly. Why would they make life harder on themselves if they can avoid it?