Fox is on which pairing again? What about Quinn and his great defensive game? With the right partner these guys generate more offense than not and spend less time in their zone even tho its not always pretty... hence the right partner. Kid is showing generational offense and posess great IQ, he'll figure it out just like Quinn did.
Quinn's defensive game has greatly improved and is a much better skater than Lane can ever dream of being. The Hughes/Hutson comparison's are ludicrous and need to stop being used.
Fox is a better comparison and he certainly still has some defensive flaws but even he is a better skater than Hutson will ever be and is two inches taller and 25 lb pounds heavier than Hutson.
Lane Hutson is not like any dman in the history of the NHL which makes his development so interesting. If he does have a significant growth spurt and his skating takes a significant step forward, especially his back skating which is the worst I have ever seen for a NHL dman in the 40 + years that I have been watching hockey......then and only then can we even discuss Fox as a realistic comparison.
I do believe that he will eventually fix his back skating enough to be a 3rd pairing D who is carefully/situationally deployed and a very exciting PP quarterback but to even get there will take a lot of improvement and development on Hutson's part.
I am excited as anyone to see what he can do on our PP in a few years but the unrealistic projections/comparisons that entirely disregard enormous ability gaps in specific areas are a little much and honestly are annoying to have to point out all of the time. I then get painted as a Hutson hater just for being a voice of reason and objective analysis. So can we please just stop pointing to Fox and Hughes as examples of his expected development path and just discuss Lane Hutson and his strengths and weaknesses honestly for once on this board.
I was called a Hutson hater for pointing out his almost entire lack of back skating ability which is now almost universally accepted on this board and I called BS on his alleged growth spurt that some posters had him at 5'11" which also had me labelled as a hater and I turned out to be correct on that as well. People called me a Slafkovsky hater before and after his draft because I said that his IQ was incredibly low for a 1 OA pick and despite all of the screaming at me about that opinion it has proven to be his biggest concern by a long shot. I am treated like an accused witch for introducing ideas that run counter to the mob's bias....thankfully I am not actually burned and continue to live to point out the absurdity of these accusations.
Hopefully not. Except to protect a lead late in a game. Reinbacher - Hutson and Guhle - Mailloux would be good.
I don't see it....putting Hutson on the top pairing will just increase the odds that we will have to play him late in the game to gamble on getting back into it. His skating will have to greatly improve to even consider such an option.
