ESPOO, Finland — “Do you ever get nervous when Hutson’s walking the line as the last man back with a guy on his hip? Or are you just numb to it at this point?”
It’s a question that could have just as easily been asked of Nick Fohr two years ago, when he was an assistant coach with USA Hockey’s 2004 age group at the NTDP and Lane Hutson was registering 63 points in 60 games in advance of the Montreal Canadiens selecting him with the 62nd pick in the 2022 NHL Draft.
Now, though, he’s the head coach of the 2006 age group and when The Athletic asked him that question after a recent U18 worlds game at Metro Areena in Espoo, it was asked about Cole Hutson instead.
Fohr laughed and shook his head.
“No, not really,” he said, chuckling. “You know what, I’ve seen him and obviously his brother even, both do it for so long that I’ve got a lot of trust and belief in him right now and in his abilities out there. I don’t get overly too concerned.”
Since the Canadiens selected him at the end of the second round, Lane has become one of the sport’s top young players. A two-time Hobey Baker top 10 finalist. A Hockey East champion, rookie of the year, scoring champ, and tournament MVP. A world juniors All-Star and gold medalist.
In that same time, Cole has broken the NTDP’s all-time scoring record by a defenseman. On Tuesday, his two-assist game against the Finns in the final game of Group A play at U18 worlds gave him 113 points in 109 games at the NTDP, passing the previous mark set by J.D. Forrest. When he tied the record two days earlier against Latvia, he did it in 100 fewer games than Forrest. He now has 23 points more than Lane, who finished with 90 in 109 games in his NTDP career. He has cruised past names like Hughes (both of them), Fox, and Jones.
A year ago, he also set the NTDP record for most points by a defenseman in a single season in his U17 campaign with 68 points in 61 games. He led last year’s U17 and U18 world championships in points by defensemen, his 12 in seven as an underager at the latter earning him tournament All-Star team honors. Into the quarterfinals, he again leads all D at this year’s tournament with seven points through four games.
And yet NHL Central Scouting has him ranked No. 55 on its final list of North American skaters eligible for the 2024 NHL Draft, 30 spots lower than it ranked Lane back in 2022.
The natural question is why — and it prompts a few follow-ups.
Who is Cole Hutson as a player and kid? Are teams going to make the same mistake with him that they did with Lane? And what are the similarities and differences in their games?
With the Hutsons, everything — fairly or unfairly, depending on who you ask — always seems to start with their height.
On that front, Cole’s actually got a leg up on his big brother. When the Habs drafted Lane, NHL Central Scouting listed him at 5-foot-8.5 and 148 pounds. It has Cole listed at 5-foot-10.25 and 165 pounds, about the same height and weight that Lane now is.
At the time of their respective drafts, Cole, who was born in late June, will also be four and a half months younger than Lane, who was born in mid-February.
On the ice, there are a ton of immediate and distinct similarities in the ways they skate and handle the puck. The baits and switches. The head and shoulder fakes. The spins. The high panic thresholds. The way they dance and attack inside the offensive zone.
But there are also some notable differences.
Fohr describes Cole as more physical than Lane.
“He’s got a little bit more of a chip on his shoulder,” Fohr said on a phone call earlier this season. “Lane was an extremely hard worker, almost to a fault where he’s out there working too hard and putting himself out of position doing too much. Cole’s got a little bit better balance there where he’s able to keep himself in the right spots a little bit more, he’s a little more patient with how he plays the game defensively, and then he engages a little bit more physically.”
(Here’s a package of some of that physicality.)
Fohr has actually talked with Cole about backing off on the amount of hits he lays because “he’s not going to be a super physical player when he makes it to the NHL level.”
“He’s going to have to do it differently and use his technique, otherwise he’s not going to be able to do it for 82 games,” Fohr said. “So we’ve been working on that a little bit, without taking it all away because you’ve got to be able to compete for pucks but he’s got to make sure that he understands that technique is going to be a big, important piece for his future as well.”
Fohr and the team’s D coach, former NHL defenseman Matt Gilroy, have also worked with Cole to try to strike the right balance on his all-offense style. But Fohr and former NTDP head coach Adam Nightingale had similar conversations with Lane, too.
“He’s got the skill and the ability is elite. He never feels like there’s a play he can’t make. And we try to allow him to do those things,” Fohr said.
“Where he gets himself into trouble is trying to do too much and thinking offense a bit and losing the defensive thought process. We have to remind him and I can hear coach Gilroy because it seems like he reminds him daily ‘Cole, you’re a defenseman. Cole, you’re a defenseman.’ He’s good at it when he’s focused on it, when he’s back in those spaces, which is a lot of the time, but occasionally, and especially depending on the situation in the game, he can get focused the other way at times. And that’s an area that he’s got to learn to balance a little bit better but honestly for a 17-year-old kid he does a pretty good job of it.”
(Here’s a package of some of his playmaking.)
He’s so naturally talented that when star center James Hagens briefly left the U18 team to attend USA’s selection camp for the world juniors in December, they put Cole in his spot on the power play so that instead of running the top he was “on the flank running downhill.”
Months later, now back running the top, both of his goals at U18s have been scored doing exactly that: going downhill.
“He’s versatile as a playmaker,” Fohr said on that call. “He’s got great vision, he’s got the deception to be able to move defenders out of a lane so that he can open that lane up, just how he postures pucks and how he moves. And when you combine that with the skill that he has and the ability to make plays in his feet and all over the place, it’s pretty good. But his vision and his playmaking ability, they go hand-in-hand and those are special abilities, being able to manipulate defenders to open something up that you want to open up.”
“Personally, I think I had a pretty slow start.”
“A point-per-game was a slow start for you?”
“I’m trying to do a little bit better than that.”
That’s the way a conversation between Cole Hutson and a reporter started after a morning skate at USA Hockey Arena earlier this season.
It was a window into the standard he has for himself — and his brothers Quinn, Lane and Lars have for themselves, too.
It has always just been about the Hutsons. And it still is.
Their father, Rob, has owned Barrington Ice Arena, a rink in their hometown, an Illinois suburb northwest of Chicago, for six years now. It’s an older rink, Cole says, but he renovated it. In the summers, they don’t skate or go to the gym with a big group of pros; they skate just the four of them, together, often in the early hours of the morning after a workout when the ice is free. Rob also coaches the youngest, Lars, 15, who played for Team Illinois this season. They’ve worked with Brian LeSeur, a local trainer, for five years and have no intention of changing.
“We’re going to stick with him,” Cole said plainly. “Just the brothers. Locked in. And he keeps us that way. We keep each other on our toes and make sure we’re going our hardest.”
Cole is even going to Boston University to follow Lane, who followed Quinn. Cole never looked up to anyone. Just Lane.
“He’s a guy that I can count on,” Cole said. “Whenever I need anything, I can just ask him because our paths and our games are so similar.”
He says it has been “fun (for) him (to) prove people wrong” and vows to do the same.
“We definitely have a huge chip on our shoulders, both of us,” Cole said.
The night before flying to U18 worlds, Cole was in the building at Little Caesars Arena to watch Lane make his NHL debut.
Cole Hutson is ready to prove people wrong. (Courtesy of Rena Laverty / USA Hockey’s NTDP)
And like Lane, who former NTDP strength and conditioning coach Will Morlock told The Athletic earlier this year was “the most competitive kid I’ve ever trained,” and a “a gamer,” he wants to prove to people that he’s up for the challenge of becoming an NHLer at his height — and not just one, but a good one.
When he attended USA Hockey’s 40-man camp to try out for the national team., he was 5-foot-4 and 129 pounds. In his early days at the NTDP, he said he grew sick of being in the gym. Now, he has grown to love it.
LeSuer has helped him put on 30 pounds of muscle.
“I’m at a decent height where it doesn’t have to be brought up a lot but I definitely get compared to Lane a lot in conversations with scouts,” he said of his size. “I think I’m a little more physical than him and bring a little bit more of a bigger presence where I can finish plays on the defensive side a little faster than him. But we try to play the same way exactly in the offensive zone, I just can’t do as much as he can. He’s a stud. I’ve worked hard on my defensive game so that I can then do what I’m best at which is joining the rush and creating offense out of it.”
As for the NTDP record?
Fohr had a conversation with him about it at the end of last year, knowing that he could get to this point but not wanting him to chase records.
“We’re in it to win hockey games and become better hockey players along the way. And if the record happens, great. If it doesn’t, oh well,” Fohr told him.
To his credit, that’s exactly what he did, eventually breaking it while playing injured after being a late addition to USA’s roster.
“Yeah, we can say I’m feeling good … yeah,” he said when asked about his health, his ankle taped (the NTDP does not release injury information).
Though he said he tried not to think about the record, preferring to focus on a gold medal, he admitted after he broke it that it “pretty cool to see my name up there with all those great D.”
Fohr was more willing to talk about it, though.
“For Cole to do something like that, with the list of players that have come through our program, is crazy,” Fohr said. “He just never stops. He’s a determined young man with a lot of talent and a lot of ability, and he just makes a ton of plays. My favourite thing about him is he makes the guys that are on the ice with him better and that’s a true sign of a really good hockey player.”
With reporting in Plymouth, Mich.
(Top photo courtesy of Rena Laverty / USA Hockey’s NTDP)