Lane Hutson Analysis: Over-Hyped Head Faker or the Next Big Thing?

Physicality

Even after his growth spurt, Lane Hutson is not a big player. Generously he is 5'10" 165 pounds, and even some other sites list him as less. But he seems like a strong, wiry 165 pounds, and has been able to hold his own against, bigger, stronger forwards.

Sure, it isn't exactly the prettiest, as seen above with Adrian Kempe, where Hutson loses his helmet, but it worked. There was no scoring chance there, and it is unfortunate that he lost his helmet and had to leave the ice immediately, but to be fair, Kings players had been ripping lids off, most obviously when they got a penalty for doing it against Brendan Gallagher.

And this isn't an isolated incident.

This is a different sequence from the same game, in fact involving the same opposing forward in Adrian Kempe. While Hutson fell early in the clip, he was able to recover quickly, and kept up with Kempe physically and showed some bite and tenacity.

In one of his first points, an assist on Alex Newhook's goal against the Ottawa Senators, he had the physically imposing Senator's captain Brady Tkachuk draped over his back. While the bigger player was leaning on him, Hutson was able to brush him off and continue the play and make a nice pass to Newhook who buried a shot.

A big part of Hutson's physical game-ish is his head-fakes which have been talked about a lot. And even possibly mocked in-game by Tkachuk.

Honestly, I don't see the big deal. Especially in this clip, Hutson is behind the net, and has Tkachuk standing right in front of the net. He then was able to make a safe pass and break out the play. If it works it works.

He also has been dynamite on the breakout and has more time with the puck on his stick in the offensive zone than any other defender in the entire league. That has to say a lot about his head-fakes and skating prowess.