How the Canadiens' Alexandre Carrier trade helped unlock Lane Hutson’s offence

DALLAS – When the Montreal Canadiens acquired defenceman Alexandre Carrier from the Nashville Predators for Justin Barron on Dec. 18, it gave them a well-balanced defence corps.

They had three offensive defencemen in Lane Hutson, Mike Matheson and Arber Xhekaj and three defensive defencemen in Kaiden Guhle, David Savard and Carrier. Conventional hockey wisdom would dictate pairing an offensive defenceman with a defensive defenceman on all three pairings.

But Martin St. Louis is not a conventional hockey coach.

In Carrier’s first game against the Red Wings in Detroit on Dec. 20, St. Louis paired him with Guhle, while Matheson and Hutson were united on the top pair, which meant Matheson shifting to the right side.

The primary reason for this, St. Louis explained at the time, was to be able to move Guhle back to his natural left side after he had been forced to play on the right for the better part of a calendar year. He also mentioned how this allowed him to have a younger defenceman paired with a veteran on each pairing.

But there was one thing he didn’t mention back then: how this new defensive alignment would drastically change how the defence would be deployed.

Guhle was asked after practice in Salt Lake City on Monday what he’s appreciated about Carrier’s play since he arrived.

“How predictable he is,” Guhle answered immediately. “It’s probably his biggest asset, how predictable he is. He came in and asked, ‘What do you guys want to do?’ And it was just chip it in, chip it out kind of thing. It’s nice having a guy on my side that’s kind of on the same page with me, because I’m kind of the same way, I’m not going to do anything flashy or too crazy. Forwards get paid to score goals and put up points, so give them the puck.

“It probably took me one period of playing with him and I knew what he was going to do pretty much all the time.”

This predictability and the instant chemistry Guhle has had with Carrier have made them the designated shutdown pairing for the Canadiens, starting the vast majority of their shifts in the defensive zone and facing the top offensive opponents night after night. And the side effect of that is that the new Matheson-Hutson pairing basically doesn’t have to do that anymore.

St. Louis insists, however, that Matheson and Hutson are not a defensive liability when playing together. It’s quite the opposite, in fact.

“We know they’re great offensive players, but I think if you ask any of our players, they have to go against them in practice and they’re not easy to play against defensively,” St. Louis said. “As much as I know offensive stuff can happen when they’re on the ice, I feel pretty good defensively because their skating and their compete level is high.

“I think that’s the foundation of why that pairing is working: It’s how they play defensively.”

It’s true that both Matheson and Hutson defend primarily with their quick feet, and that can be challenging for offensive players to face. They can skate with even the best skating forwards on the other team, which is a different look for those offensive players than facing bigger, more traditional defensive defencemen.

But it’s also true that Matheson and Hutson have not had to play nearly as much defence as they did before, at least not right off the faceoff.

In the 12 games since Carrier’s arrival, before the Canadiens’ game Thursday night in Dallas, Hutson’s and Matheson’s defensive zone faceoff deployment at five-on-five has changed drastically from the 12 games before Carrier’s arrival.

“We’re trying to help the guys to play in their strengths,” St. Louis said. “Sometimes it’s just the way the flow of the game happens, but if we can get these guys to start in the O-zone more – not that they can’t play in the D-zone – I think it’s playing to their strengths.”

Hutson has noticed the difference, and it shows in his five-on-five numbers in the 12 games before Carrier’s arrival and the 12 games since. Not that his numbers can be solely explained by this deployment, but it’s a factor.

“It helps for sure,” Hutson said of his new deployment. “Some games, maybe the puck’s not coming your way as much, and all of a sudden you get an offensive zone draw. And when you get out there for one, maybe you get an extra look, or an extra chance to make a play, just get us pushing in the right direction if we aren’t, or just keep applying the pressure.”

Since Dec. 20, Hutson has 13 points in 12 games, tied for 17th in NHL scoring with Sidney Crosby, John Tavares, Mikko Rantanen, Cole Caufield, Connor Bedard and seven others, which is pretty good company. Plus/minus is far from being a reflective stat, but Hutson’s plus-10 over that same span is tied for 10th in the NHL.

dans sa propre voie

in his own Lane#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/tp5wBC4FhW

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 15, 2025

Deployment is not the only factor in Hutson’s success since Carrier’s arrival. There is also the notion that he and Matheson are constantly in a hockey lab of sorts. Discussions between shifts, between periods, before games, after games — the two of them are always picking each other’s brains on the game.

“All the time, we love to geek out over things like that,” Matheson said. “I think just the ability to both have a lot of interest in it and a lot of interest in getting better is a lot of fun. I think we’re on the same page for a lot of different things and trying to be even more so as fast as possible the more we play with each other. The only way to do that is to talk through things that happened on the ice as much as possible.”

Between periods is apparently when most of that geeking out happens.

“After every period, we always talk about what we’re seeing,” Hutson said, “both what we think we could do better, as well as our forwards, just to let guys know to come back to this spot, or what we’re going to need to cover up when forwards are trying to get going and the game’s not flowing as easily for them.”

And they are also picking up elements of each other’s games. Matheson is doing far more head and shoulder fakes since Hutson arrived in Montreal, which he admits he picked up from his rookie teammate. But it’s not a one-way street.

In watching Matheson at the offensive blue line one-touch a rim along the boards to himself in the middle of the ice, Hutson saw something he could add to his own game. And he already has.

“That’s something I’ve picked up off him, just seeing how well it works for him and seeing if it will work for me,” Hutson said. “Not everything he does, I’m going to be able to do, and vice versa.

“But there’s so much to learn from his game.”

Too many people assumed Matheson and Hutson would not be able to co-exist — that Hutson’s arrival made Matheson redundant. But as we are seeing now, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The two of them are helping each other and driving the Canadiens’ offence in a significant way.

(Photos: Nic Antaya and Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)