Weren\u2019t the Canadiens built somewhat similarly during your time with Montreal?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were. The Canadiens have always been able to play with the puck, they\u2019re exciting to watch down the middle but they\u2019re not traditionally a big team. When we had success in Montreal, we were quick to check. We had a good mix of size and skill. But with (coach) Michel Therrien, we were always a good checking team. When we won, we had to commit defensively. It\u2019s going to be the same with this team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not worried about (star defenseman) Lane Hutson. He\u2019s going to make mistakes but I know he\u2019s going to compete on the defensive side. Everybody has to have that same competitive drive when it comes to playing defense. If they do that, the game is going to get a whole lot easier for them. Goaltending will be great because they won\u2019t be giving up all these Grade-A scoring chances. We know that Jakub Dobes and their guys can make those saves if they have to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Montreal can really hone in on that A game and what that identity looks like and to a man everybody understands what they have to do to win, I think they\u2019re right where they need to be. And they\u2019re learning that. It\u2019s a good thing to learn it now. Go through your growing pains now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Between 1955-2013, six Canadiens won the Norris Trophy as the NHL\u2019s top defenseman a total of 12 times. You were No. 12 in 2013. Can Hutson, voted Calder Trophy winner in 2024-25 as the League\u2019s best rookie, be the seventh and No. 13 to win the Norris?<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s going to be up against some great competition. The competitive balance in the League is very, very high. But with these awards, some of it is subjective. How long has a guy played? I don\u2019t get too caught up with where the awards go. We know Lane is a Norris Trophy guy. We know what Norris\u00a0defensemen look like, we know what his game needs to look like to be in that conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe shows up that way every night. That\u2019s all that matters to me. He\u2019s just as valuable to his team as (Colorado\u2019s) Cale Makar, (Minnesota\u2019s) Quinn Hughes, (Buffalo\u2019s) Rasmus Dahlin or any of those guys. It\u2019s going to be up to him and how he plays. Would you have taken any other defenseman over Cale Makar the last five years? No. But he hasn\u2019t won the Norris five years in a row (voted the award in 2021-22 and 2024-25).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a regular-season award. Lane is going to have to put together a substantial season to win the Norris. He\u2019s going to have to be in the top two or three guys. If he is, I think he\u2019ll find himself holding some hardware. And if he\u2019s in the top three guys, Montreal is having an outstanding year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Weren\u2019t the Canadiens built somewhat similarly during your time with Montreal? \u201cWe were. The Canadiens have always been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-938594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}