I more seeing him with David Savard

Please look the message I answered to. The guy was saying to sign Tuch. My comments were about Tuch

Dude I wasn’t putting words in your mouth. The first part of my comment was towards you and the second part was a comment towards the media. I even made them two separate paragraphs so you hopefully wouldn’t mistake my meaning.
I meant no offense, just trying to temper my fellow Hab fans’ expectations.

I assume St.Louis will start him out with a partner who can handle himself and play him mostly sheltered minutes, maybe give him some looks on the PP and that’s cool with me. Earn your stripes young man.

Maybe but Savard plays some tough minutes I see St.Louis starting him out with more sheltered shifts. I was thinking maybe Kovacevic myself.

I see him in person, he played like 30 min and I think that he maked a full 5 min shift on the PP...........

placeholder? the guy is top 10 in point for dmen!

Same thing applies to a different prospect (minus the being the best in the org part...)

*Her

But that was in college hockey.
Think about it, yeah I believe he’ll get to play at least one of the back-backs to finish the season but he’ll have to learn the system, get comfortable with his defensive partner and then go out and play against seasoned vets…by either Monday or Tuesday. I’d be very surprised if St.Louis threw him to the wolves to finish out the season.

Small undersized defensemen... I'm skeptical

and that's excellent! I'll repeat... In the grand scheme of things (ie looking into the future) 30 year old Matheson was never considered to be the Habs PP1 guy. Not when Hughes acquired him (at age 28), and not now. Hence being a placeholder.

and let's called a spade a spade here (whatever that metaphor is), Matheson is 10th in scoring for Dmen because he plays over 70% of all the Habs PP time (which is 7th worst in the NHL), and is 3rd in the entire NHL for average time on ice... Put Matheson on any current contending team, and he obviously would not be putting up the same production or ice-time. All this should reinforce my point that if MTL want to be a contending team, Matheson shouldn't be their PP1 quarterback, nor should he be their leader in ice-time.
And this isn't to take anything away from Matheson! He's been great for MTL. Both offensively and defensively. But ideally (if MTL can be a contending team) you want him running the Habs PP2, and at most on MTLs 2nd defensive pairing (3rd or 4th most used dman for ice time).


And to tie everything together, this isn't to say to rush Hutson. I'm all for MTL taking their time with him. But inserting him directly on PP1 would not be rushing him in the slightest, simply giving him the best opportunity to succeed. Hutson will be getting sheltered minutes at 5v5 for quite a while until he can get used to the pro game / speed. And as others have mentioned, pairing him with Savard is the absolute best choice.

Yes. Lets move a 60 pt top scoring dman in the league off the 1st pp for a kid that has never played an NHL game. True Hab fan logic.

Hutson looks like one of the best players in his draft class, gonna be scary having him in the ATL division

See my reply to drambui.

Jesus people, I’m simply saying that for MTL to be a contender, Matheson shouldn’t be their PP1 quarterback… is that really that outlandish a thing to say?! Or a some of my fellow Habs fans gotten used to / and are content with mediocrity…

Testing out MTLs best prospect on their PP1, while fully sheltering him at 5v5, would not be rushing him… and is probably what’s best to try for the Habs long term success.

What do you mean he is not considered the habs #1 PP guy. Of course he is, you provided the stats right after to prove it! I have no idea why you are saying that.

You can mean that he is not in the longterm plans, but he is obviously in the short terms!

and your arguments are unfair towards Matheson. pout our whole powerplay on a cup contending team like colorado, they would all get second PP time and put way less points. Cant just target Matheson.

It is VERY unlikel you would put rookie huston and he would perform better than Matheson. You have to ease the guy into it. Ncca is very different and he needs to put on some muscle and time to adapts. sure he can play a few games this year, but he needs to adapt to the speed of the game. He'll get Pp1 time when he is ready, Matheson has exceeded every expectation of him so far.

They're eliminated from the playoffs, what do they have to lose trying their (hopefully) future PP quarterback on their top powerplay with their current unit. If they were going to the playoffs I'd agree with you but down the stretch of a lost season is exactly why you'd put an inexperienced 20-year-old on PP1.

It's Matheson's job to lose. And Hutson's position to earn. Period.

Matheson is one of the best players in the league at what he does. I don't see Hutson outplaying that for a long time. We might even be one of those teams with 2 defenders on our #1 PP

Who knows. I just don't get the Matheson hate. Like he's MAB or something.

I believe Hutson is going to have a hard time adjusting to the physical side of the NHL. Might not be as easy as some people think. He'll need longer than most.

Yep. He needs to just live with Franky Bouillion. 1 year. See him again pre-season 25-26.

Yeah, he's 160 LBS. He's needs to figure out how to put on weight without losing his speed.

Habs have the 7th worst PP this year in the NHL… as far as I’m concerned, MSL can juggle the entire unit.

I do agree that having 2 dman could be a good solution. Burrows would have to change his entire PP structure (which I’m completely fine with lol) and a forward still needs to come out.
Take out Newhook, move Slaf to bumper position? Maybe… 🤔

Hughes is def going to add another top 6 option at the draft. So they'll def have a more complete top 6 with a more efficient PP. Up to Roy, Newhook, RHP to battle and fill it out. Regardless. Imo Hutson shouldn't see NHL time at all next year. But, we'll see!

@drambui @SLAFSQUATCH @Jay27

The guys hit the nail on the head at 12:36 of the video. Keep Hutson AWAY from the current PP2, it’s a disaster unit, and would only set Hutson up for failure. Insert him on PP1.

https://youtu.be/X4pifCD6BqY?si=OXWCePHMZChJrtyg