Lane Hutson of the Montreal Canadiens and his younger brother Cole Hutson of the Washington Capitals had never played against each other. Not in the NHL, not in juniors, not at any level, which is unusual for two brothers two years apart who have been chasing each other around a rink since they could skate. Wednesday night at Capital One Arena was the first time.
Cole was mic’d up for it, and at one point the broadcast caught him offering his teammates the benefit of two decades of research.
“Watch his chest, don’t look at the puck when he has it,” Cole told them.
The hockey world was unanimous about the quality of this intelligence.
“That is funny, but also they teach you that in squirts,” one fan wrote, referring to the under-10 level of American youth hockey.
“This is pretty much the first thing you learn in organized hockey,” another said, while a third put it more gently: “That’s the oldest hockey advice in the book. Cool clip though.”
Who are the Hutson brothers?
Rob Hutson runs a hockey academy in Barrington, Illinois, and has spent a good portion of the last two decades breaking up summer fights in it. Three of his sons have now reached the NHL, with Lane in Montreal, Cole in Washington and Quinn having signed with Edmonton out of Boston University. Lars, the youngest, is still coming.
His own scouting report on the two who met on Wednesday is that Cole shoots more and plays more physically, while Lane defends with his stick and his brain.
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Cole, for his part, had set expectations fairly high beforehand.
“I’ve been battling him my whole life, so I kind of know what he’s going to do,” he said before the game. “And, hopefully, we come out with the win.”
He got the second part. Washington beat Montreal 5-4, with parents Rob and Julie in the building for it.
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