Lane Hutson believes he was wrongly penalized twice last night

Charles-Alexis Brisebois
Lane Hutson believes he was wrongly penalized twice last night
Credit: Getty Images

The referees at the Bell Centre yesterday missed a good game, didn't they?

It's rarely as obvious as this, but the referees had a bad one on their hands last night. In the Canadiens' 4-3 victory, they didn't do their job properly.

It showed.

Lane Hutson undoubtedly took the biggest penalty. His “penalty” against Marcus Foligno is the most ridiculous thing I've seen on ice since… holes in the Olympic rink, like?

Fortunately for Hutson, Bill Guerin made sure that the poor Olympic rink wasn't at the heart of the Habs defenseman's concerns…

You know it's ridiculous when the referee apologizes to the player afterwards. He couldn't do anything because it's not possible to review such a play, but at least he apologized.

Martin St. Louis and all hockey fans were right to be outraged yesterday: a player who doesn't get hit and goes down alone deserves an Oscar, not a power play.

But that wasn't the only play that didn't go Lane Hutson's way.

In the third period, the Canadiens defenseman went to the penalty box after hooking Yakov Trenin. This was after Jayden Struble let Vladimir Tarasenko go with the puck and just before Mike Matheson's five-on-three penalty.

On the Hutson penalty play, there was confusion. We wondered if the penalty should have gone to Brendan Gallagher instead.

But in any case, Hutson is now up to 14 penalty minutes this season. And listening to him, he thinks he deserves to be at 10 again, since he sees his two penalties as unfair.

“Which one?” – Lane Hutson, asked about his phantom penalty after the game

But hey. All that didn't stop Hutson, ahead of Bill Guerin, from having another strong two-point game. He picked up an assist on Cole Caufield's winning goal…

But he also scored a superb goal on a clever pass from Ivan Demidov.

Throughout the game, we felt he was in control. And after the game, he received a major endorsement for his potential Norris candidacy: P.K. Subban.

The former Habs player, who knows what it takes to be the NHL's Defenseman of the Year, made a video about it.

At the time of writing, Hutson ranks second in the NHL (with Zach Werenski) for points among defensemen. Only Cale Makar (54) has more.

Hutson doesn't believe in second-year jinx.

Between Lane Hutson and Alexandre Carrier (the Québécois Wayne Gretzky, as I've been calling him for the past week), the Habs have once again seen their defensemen help out offensively.

It certainly makes a difference.


overtime

– Reminder: Ivan Demidov is good.

– The Rocket won yesterday.

– Wow.

– Of note.

– Interesting.

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