Lane Hutson is the lightest player in the NHL

One of the reasons Canadiens fans were happy to see Patrik Laine come to town was because of his size.

Aside from his great talent, of course, it helped that he was 6’4 and 208 pounds. Why was that? Because the Canadiens have been short and thin for years.

And obviously, when you look at this year’s line-up, that hasn’t changed much.

If we look at the thirteen forwards, six defensemen and two goaltenders who have played at least one game for the Habs this season, we see that the Flanelle are back among the smaller teams in the league.

The Athletic has compiled the data, and the Canadiens are the 29th-biggest team on the circuit, with an average of 6’1. Only the Wild, the Kraken and the Avalanche are worse.

It’s official: The Maple Leafs have the biggest team in the NHL this season, based on average weight.

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The Bruins, at almost 6’3, lead the NHL. Almost two inches taller than the Habs on average, it seems.

The Canadiens have two 6’4 players right now (Arber Xhekaj and Kirby Dach), which means the club isn’t close to having one of the league’s tallest players.

But it does have three of the NHL’s smallest players. No one is shorter than Cole Caufield (he’s on a list of eight players at 5’8) and 13 NHL players, including Lane Hutson and Brendan Gallagher, are at 5’9.

All three are useful at this early stage of the season, which makes the whole thing less serious. But they’re still small.

Lane Hutson looks so much like Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes that even Snake is mixed

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In terms of weight, it’s not as bad. The Canadiens rank ninth in the league for heaviest teams at 202.9 pounds on average. That’s more than seven pounds ahead of the Maple Leafs and more than 10 pounds (192.1) ahead of the Avalanche.

But the club still has the NHL’s lightest player: Lane Hutson. At 162 pounds (just like the Devils’ Seamus Casey), let’s just say the Habs’ defenseman isn’t huge.

But at least, as I said, it’s hard to complain about the average weight of the Habs guys – and it’ll be even better when Laine returns. In fact, the Habs have one guy in the top-10 heaviest: Arber Xhekaj at 240 pounds.

For those who want to see more data compiled by The Athletic, I’m passing on the link to the article. It includes data on Canadiens players and player age.