NHL Notebook: Lane Hutson wins Calder; Oilers complain about Cup Final officiating

Hutson received first place votes on 165 of 191 ballots. Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf came in second place, but earned just 15 first place votes. In other words, there wasn’t much doubt among voters who deserved the honour this season. San Jose Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini finished in third place, not too far behind Wolf.

Hutson put up 66 points through 82 regular season games with the Montreal Canadiens this season. He became just the fourth defenceman in the NHL’s modern era to lead rookies in scoring, joining Bobby Orr, Brian Leetch, and Canucks captain Quinn Hughes.

For full transparency, here was the ballot I submitted:

Lane Hutson, Montreal Canadiens
Dustin Wolf, Calgary Flames
Macklin Celebrini, San Jose Sharks
Matvei Michkov, Philadelphia Flyers
Will Smith, San Jose Sharks

Oilers complain about Cup Final officiating

On Monday night, the Edmonton Oilers fell to the Florida Panthers by a final score of 6-1. It’s the first game of this year’s Stanley Cup Final that didn’t require overtime to solve, and as expected, got very chippy, especially in the third period. The two teams combined for 140 penalty minutes, with 122 coming in the third period alone.

Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch wasn’t shy about sharing his thoughts not only about Monday night, but about the series as a whole through three games.

“I think the game was out of hand. I don’t think we would’ve acted or played like that had the game been a one-goal, or two-goal game. I think our guys were just trying to, I don’t know — boys being boys, just trying to make investments for the next game.

“We’ve got some guys who’d love to drop the gloves a little more and get at ‘er a little bit. We’re a big, physical team. We have some skilled guys and I don’t see our skilled guys getting distracted and getting into that. The guys who like it are getting into it.”

Knoblauch, whose team was called for too many men in the first period, “complimented” the officials for catching that one, but didn’t pass up the opportunity to remind everyone that he felt the officials missed a too many men call during overtime of game two in the lead up to Brad Marchand’s game-winning goal.

“I think the referees did an outstanding job tonight, and they even caught the too-many-men penalty in the first, which was too many men. They caught us there. I just wish they had been calling it in Game 2 in overtime.”

Forward Evander Kane also chimed in:

“They seem to get away with it more than we do,” he said. “It’s tough to find the line — they’re doing just as much stuff as we do. It was 4-4 at the end of it, then it gets out of hand and there seems to be a little more attention to our group.”

The Panthers now hold a 2-1 series lead, and this one is far from over.