MONTREAL — Lane Hutson made someone’s day Tuesday morning.

The Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League brought some of its top NHL draft prospects to the Montreal Canadiens’ morning skate, among them 5-foot-11 defenceman Xavier Villeneuve, an offensive dynamo who is projected as a first-round pick and weighs less than 160 pounds.

Hutson mentioned to Villeneuve how he’s seen some of his highlights this season, and Villeneuve was thrilled to meet one of his role models as an undersized defenceman.

It was an appropriate morning for that meeting because Hutson was also preparing to face one of his role models.

“The guy for me who helped me was Quinn Hughes on the other team,” Hutson said, “so it’s pretty cool that we’ve got a guy here who’s obviously going to be a pretty special player, and it’s good that I’m a role model.”

Hutson doesn’t really know the Minnesota Wild’s Hughes. He wasn’t helped with some sage advice at a key moment in his career or anything. They’ve only met a handful of times and don’t really have a meaningful personal relationship.

But the impact Hughes had on Hutson is extremely meaningful, it just came from Hutson watching Hughes on television.

It gave him belief.

“When you see someone dominate at this level at that size, before him for defencemen it was pretty rare, and he does it every night,” Hutson said. “So it just gives myself hope.”

When asked how he and Hughes are different, Hutson mentioned that Hughes has a better shot, but that he’s working on catching up.

This was not the only inspiration for Hutson on Tuesday morning. He was coming off a 6-5 overtime win in Ottawa Saturday night in which, despite the Canadiens being completely outclassed, he had three assists but was not happy with the way he played.

“I feel like I played a weird game, I was in weird spots in weird times,” Hutson said. “It happens, my execution was a little off.”

Still, three assists is nothing to sneeze at, no?

“Sometimes the puck rolls in your favour, and it did,” he responded. “But definitely not my best, and what’s great is you get another chance tonight to be better.”

Hutson was not the only inspired Canadiens player Tuesday.

This was the first time Canadiens rookie Ivan Demidov would be facing Wild superstar Kirill Kaprizov. Just as Hutson is often compared to Hughes, Demidov is often compared to Kaprizov.

Neither comparison is entirely fair considering Demidov is a rookie and Hutson is in his second season, but their talent makes more so at this stage of their respective careers.

As excited as Hutson was to face Hughes, Demidov was just as excited to face Kaprizov.

“Oh yeah, he’s one of the best Russians in the league,” Demidov said after the game, “so I was so excited before the game just to see how he’s playing.”

The Canadiens beat the Wild 4-3 on Tuesday night on a goal by Cole Caufield with 15 seconds left in regulation, his second straight game-winning goal.

COLE WENT BACK TO BACK! 🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/OLxFy7GW5S

— NHL (@NHL) January 21, 2026

The only two players on the Canadiens to get two points in the game were Hutson and Demidov. The pair is joined at the hip, roommates on the road, hockey junkies to their core who spend a lot of time talking shop.

When they combined on a goal that made the score 3-2 in the second period, it demonstrated so much of what makes them special.

Ce genre de calme ne s’enseigne pas

You can’t teach this kind of poise#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/oZqebEuSDu

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 21, 2026

If you watch Demidov’s eyes before making that pass, they are fixed on the net and Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt. And Hutson unleashed the shot he’s been working on to catch up to Hughes. He now has nine goals, three more than he scored all of last season.

Despite Demidov’s eyes suggesting differently, Hutson was ready for that pass.

“I knew he saw me,” Hutson said. “I’m not surprised by the plays he makes anymore. It’s second nature to him to make those really nice highlight plays, but he also does so many of the right things when he’s pressuring pucks, winning puck battles. He earns the opportunity to do those really nice plays.”

Caufield and Hutson were shown video of Caufield’s game-winning goal that the Canadiens posted to their team X account along with a tag for USA Hockey.

.@usahockey pic.twitter.com/jUck62SBbY

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 21, 2026

The context, of course, is that Caufield was not selected to play for Team USA in the Milan Olympics. Neither was Hutson. Caufield initially laughed, but was then somewhat mortified when he saw it.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” he said as soon as he saw it.

Hutson, however, was not the least bit mortified.

“Oh, that’s pretty funny,” he said, laughing.

They both knew they were facing Wild general manager Bill Guerin, who is also the GM of Team USA. Caufield didn’t really want to go there, which is understandable considering he could still be an injury replacement, but Hutson felt no such restrictions.

“He has the hardest job ever,” Hutson said of Guerin. “There’s so many good players that could maybe be on that team, and Cole’s definitely one of them. That had to feel pretty good for him. I try not to think too much about it. I just try to build my game and help my team.”

Hutson could also be an injury replacement. But Hughes being on that team makes it that much more difficult to include Hutson because defencemen their size remain rare, and having two on the same team in a best-on-best tournament would require a severe turnaround in conventional hockey wisdom.

The Canadiens had a 2-0 lead in goals at five-on-five with Hutson on the ice Tuesday night, a 30-8 advantage in shot attempts and an 11-5 advantage in shots on goal, according to Natural Stat Trick. Meanwhile, Hughes played more than 30 minutes on the back half of a back-to-back and displayed his skill and ability throughout the game.

Hutson and Hughes were the two most dominant players on the ice. Perhaps conventional hockey wisdom needs to change.

Perhaps no one is more aware of the limitations of conventional hockey wisdom than Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, who had to overcome it to have a Hall of Fame playing career.

St. Louis wasn’t the least bit surprised at Hutson’s assessment of his game in Ottawa or his performance in this one.

“I just think it’s compete level,” St. Louis said. “He didn’t like his game in Ottawa, but it wasn’t because of his compete level. Did he walk away with three assists? He made some big plays at key times. But again, we’re talking about sticking to the process of things versus the result, and you look at the stat sheet, if you didn’t watch the game you think Lane Hutson had three assists, he must have been great again. But if you watch the game and know the player, he didn’t play to his standards.

“His compete level is always high. And I don’t think he gets rattled by much. He’s honest with his performance. If you talk to him about certain games, he knows exactly. So to me, why he’s doing great things at such a young age and growing as a player is he leaves the rink knowing exactly how he played, and it’s a lot of truth behind it. It’s not looking at the scoresheet and (thinking) I’m good, I got three assists tonight. That’s very encouraging to have players like that as a coach.”

St. Louis has more those than just Hutson. He has Caufield, whose clutch gene is truly special. He has Demidov, whose hockey sense and poise at age 20 is off the charts. He has Juraj Slafkovský, whose combination of size and skill is unique in the NHL. He has Canadian Olympian Nick Suzuki, Noah Dobson, a collection of young talent unseen in Montreal in decades and a truly promising core that is still one or two years away from hitting its collective prime.

USA Hockey might disagree, but on this night, the Canadiens’ future could not have shone much brighter.