MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens learned a lot from their Eastern Conference final loss to the Carolina Hurricanes last post-season.
Twenty-two-year-old defenceman Lane Hutson is one of the Canadiens’ young stars and he said on Saturday that Montreal’s deep playoff run was an educational experience.
“We have so many great players and do so many great things,” said Hutson. “Sometimes you could let that detail slip when you have talented players.
“(We need to be) detailed and dialled in on the little things that affect us later in the season and in the playoffs.”
Those details are typically in the defensive zone, such as stopping on pucks, having their stick in the right positions, and being able to box out opponents.
“Collectively, we need to spend less time in the defensive zone,” said head coach Martin St-Louis. “We tried to find answers this summer to spend less time defending as a group. Sometimes it’s an individual mistake and someone’s fault, it happens.”
Hutson agreed with his head coach.
“They’re all little things,” said Hutson. “But they all add up and have a pretty big impact on the game.”
One of the things Montreal did this summer to address some of those small details was bring in veteran NHL coach Derek Lalonde as an associate coach. The former head coach of the Detroit Red Wings also won a Stanley Cup on Jon Cooper’s Tampa Bay Lightning staff and was an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs last season.
He will be tasked with helping assistant coach Stephane Robidas organize the defensive zone and penalty kill.
“He’s easy to talk to,” Hutson said about Lalonde. “Seeing him work alongside our staff, they fit really well and gel. He has good ideas on the defensive side and obviously likes watching us play offence too.”
Chris Kreider, the newest member of the Canadiens, has also been given the prime opportunity on the team’s top line alongside Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.
He will make his Montreal pre-season debut when the Habs host the Maple Leafs on Saturday at Bell Centre. He had only had two days of practice and a morning skate to learn the team’s system after signing on as a free agent on Thursday.
“I’m going to make mistakes, I think we probably all are,” Kreider said. “The biggest thing is doing it fast, having the courage to mess up at speed.
“(To) trust myself, making reads, and if I make the wrong read now is the time to do it and then learning from it, and building and making sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Putting Kreider on the top line allows Juraj Slafkovsky to play with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov. The trio found chemistry on the ice when they played together last season.
“We were pretty good together,” Slafkovsky said. “We had some success, we scored some goals and helped the team but at the same time, we all got better and we all expect better from each other this year.”
Slafkovsky is entering his fifth NHL season, but the Canadiens head coach feels that the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft has finished defining what he is as a player and what he will become.
“He has some things that he will show us, and we don’t know exactly what they are yet,” St-Louis said. “It’s fun to be curious and have him continue to push and see what he will be.
Like Slafkovsky, Hutson is also looking to improve, with his head coach noting he has the DNA that the best players have: the ability to always want to get better.
“I’m not a finished product by any means,” Hutson said. “I feel like I have so much room to grow and become a better defender.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2026.
Jared Book, The Canadian Press
