The Canadian | Waiting for Lane Hutson

(Ottawa) It is not usual, on the morning of a match, that the main topic of conversation surrounding the Canadian is the following match, played two days later.

Yet that was the situation on this rainy Saturday morning in the quiet suburbs of Ottawa. A little because the stakes linked to the duel against the Senators in the evening are slim. Much due to the upcoming arrival of Lane Hutson with the big club.

The young defender, dominant on the American university circuit, signed his first professional contract on Friday. He will meet his new teammates on Sunday in Detroit, and even if Martin St-Louis has not commented on his participation in Monday’s game against the Red Wings, we can bet that the new number 48 of the Habs will live his life that day. baptism of the NHL.

At a time when many fans are impatient to see this young prodigy make the jump to the Canadian, the head coach has instead adopted a posture of caution towards him. After amassing 97 points in 77 games at Boston University, Hutson arrives with extraordinary offensive assets.

But at 5’10” and a little over 160 pounds, he will have his work cut out to compete against players who are older and, above all, stronger than him.

“So far, he has proven at all levels that he has what it takes to have an impact in a match,” agreed St-Louis. There, we will have to see if he is capable of continuing to do that at this level. »

His late arrival in the team, with only three games remaining, “is part of the end of the season, in the situation we are in,” he stressed.

The context will be all the more difficult for Hutson because he will probably not be entitled to any full training before playing a match. The club will likely take the day off in Detroit on Sunday, then face the Wings twice in two nights. The recruit’s preparation will therefore be limited to a few meetings and a morning warm-up on Monday. “I think it would be good to have practices, but we don’t have that luxury,” St-Louis said again. We’ll see where it goes. »

The pilot, moreover, claims not to have had much time to study Hutson’s game. “What I see is a little bit of his highlights. It’s sure it’s fun to watch, but I like seeing the whole match. »

Disappointment in Ottawa

While waiting for Lane Hutson and Monday’s game in Detroit, there is still a meeting Saturday evening in Ottawa. Cayden Primeau will defend the Montreal net, while in attack, Tanner Pearson will give way to Jesse Ylönen.

As we mentioned above, this confrontation offers little, if any, stakes, unless you are a fan of the lottery determining the ranks in the draft. Only one point separates the two teams in the general classification, so that the loser of this clash of the titans will see their chances of finishing in 28th increase.^e rank.

Given the low expectations attached to the Canadian this season, it’s not exactly a surprise that it ended like this. But among the Senators, this state of affairs is a disappointment.

Before the season started, we could believe that the reconstruction would finally bear fruit in the federal capital and that participation in the playoffs was possible. With three games to go, the Sens find themselves 12 points behind the last place giving access. A catastrophic start to the campaign, which cost the jobs of general manager Pierre Dorion and then head coach D. J. Smith, left the team with an impossible delay, despite a rather positive second half of the calendar. (19-16-3).

Saturday morning, Thomas Chabot refused to talk about a “lost” season, which he instead described as a “year of learning”, where “consistency” was lacking.

“Last year was the first time we got so close,” he told Montreal journalists. At the end of the day, it’s just learning. In hockey, sometimes it’s not your night. But a team like the Boston Bruins, on nights when things aren’t going well, we watch what they do, how they play to give themselves a chance to win every night. This is what we learn. »

Jacques Martin, interim head coach, anticipates that “changes” will be made to the roster during the off-season. It will be up to management to “decide which players to move forward with”, but also to determine how we want to surround the still young core of the club. The evaluation will be done as much on offense as on defense and in front of the net, he noted. In short, after a tumultuous season, the summer does not look set to be the quietest west of the Ottawa River.

For this last local game for the Senators in 2023-2024, star forward Tim Stützle will be missing, as he is nursing an “upper body” injury. The team has also been without the services of Josh Norris for several weeks.