As has become customary and even commonplace, the Canadian risks bowing down to a player who has never played a match at the professional level.
Everything indicates that the Canadian will offer a contract to Lane Hutson and that he will come to play at least one unimportant game in the NHL after the NCAA final series, starting April 13.
By playing a game with the Canadian, Hutson will burn a year of contract and reduce the period before his autonomy by 12 months. In short, this moment when he risks going from rich to very, very rich.
This has become the norm for good NCAA prospects.
They are the ones who have the big end of the stick. Yes, yes, teenagers with a few chin hairs have more power than the multi-billion dollar professional organizations that drafted them. It’s strange, but that’s it.
With the Canadian, we saw him with Jordan Harris and Sean Farrell. The Flames also did it with Johnny Gaudreau at the time, in particular.
The beautiful gift
And why are we offering this beautiful gift on a silver platter, this reduction of one year before autonomy?
Because the good NCAA prospect, like Hutson, could decide not to come to terms with the team that drafted him, become a free agent and go play with the club of his choice. This could be the case with Hutson after the 2025 season. Analyst Dany Dubé also reported last week that this disaster scenario has not been ruled out by the Hutson clan. That the latter would be able to decide to evaluate his options. That is to say, go join any other NHL team.
This is what Alex Kerfoot, Will Butcher, Blake Wheeler, Kevin Hayes and Jimmy Vesey have done, for example. Adam Fox is an almost similar case, but he was not a free agent. His rights had been traded to the Rangers because he did not want to sign a contract with Carolina.
Back to Lane Hutson. In July 2022, when the Canadian drafted him, he said he couldn’t be happier to find himself in Montreal.
“When I think of all the legends who have played for the Canadiens, I consider myself lucky to follow this path. It’s an incredible feeling. We are talking about a team with a rich history,” he told Newspaper.
I too, I think of the legends or the ghosts, of the bruised arms which hold out the torch and which ask current players to carry it high.
Not sure that it would go over with all those who have their name hanging in the heights of the Bell Center if they knew that there are now players who, before having played a single match at the professional level, can demand to play in the NHL as soon as they arrive to get richer, faster. And if not, they will go elsewhere.
Team first? No!
We are far from the beautiful lessons on team sport, the feeling of belonging, loyalty and commitment.
I wonder what kind of athlete you create when a player is more important than the team before even playing a game.
I wonder what the point of the draft is if we continue to let all this go.
You will tell me that there is nothing surprising. Let money rule sport. That the players are right to be individualistic with all the money at stake. But you have to believe that I am naive. That I think that in paid professional sport, there are still many athletes who thrive on more than money.
No, this isn’t all Hutson’s fault. He does like the others and is advised like the others.
You have to have been good and not so good to demand to burn a year of contract. And he was.
The system is made like this. So it would be crazy not to take advantage of it.
The Canadian, in all this, is not to blame either. Kent Hughes would be crazy not to allow him to burn a year of his contract and risk seeing him refuse to sign.
Besides, I really wonder what Hutson would do if Hughes didn’t want to.
Imagine the melodrama behind the scenes. The pressure would be enormous on the Hutson clan to convince them not to sign, precisely so as not to create precedents.
Rumors are circulating that this is what the Flyers wanted to do with their prospect Cutter Gauthier. The organization did not want to allow him to burn a year of contract. He was traded.
But that won’t happen with Hutson. The Canadian will have to play the game and continue to be an attractive organization.
But there is something indecent about all this and it has to stop.