Lane Hutson's name lights up the imagination of each Montreal Canadiens fan, a simple YouTube search of his highlights will tell you why pretty quickly.
This kid is dynamite all bottled up into a 5 foot 10 and barely 170-pound frame, but he is built for the big stage. Whatever the 61 drafting teams thought before Hutson was drafted is beyond me because this guy could become the steal of the draft. Sure he isn't very big and he plays a position that generally requires size, strength and physicality, but he seems to fit into the group of uber-talented undersized defenders like a needle in a groove.
I'm not convinced that the Habs have had a player quite as exciting on the team since the days of PK Subban. A player that can grab the puck and dash up the ice, leaving you on the edge of your seat each time he touches the puck. Hutson will never light up players, like Subban did against Brad Marchand and many others, but he will make Sportscentre highlight packages with his nifty toolkit.
It might not happen right away, but very few will question whether it will happen or not - Hutson is going to find his way onto the number one power play - and it will be glorious when he gets there. We saw glimpses of what he could do in the NCAA, with a legitimate high-impact future NHL prospect in Macklin Celebrini. Just wait until he gets to work with the Habs' best players in the ultimate game of chess, solving the opposition's penalty kill.
Before he set foot on NHL ice, many were 'overhyping' him - he won't be able to do that against NHL players. Then he hopped on the ice and dazzled against the Detroit Red Wings, in just his second shift of his NHL career. Sure he only played two games and for sure there will be mistakes, but he has played smaller than everybody his entire life and found a way.
What he is doing isn't for the faint of heart, but he isn't the first player to do it - Quinn Hughes, Adam Fox, Cale Makar and Vince Dunn are doing it. Before them, while in a lesser extent Torrey Krug sort of opened the door for the smaller defenseman. I'm not suggesting that Hutson will get to that level, but I don't think that he is going to be anything less than a top pairing defender.
Finding the perfect defence partner will go an awful long way and thankfully the Habs have a few candidates on the right side who fit the bill.