The Case for a Canadiens Reunion on Defense Between Hutson and Struble

That makes the left-handed, all-around Kaiden Guhle, who formed an often-turned-to pairing with Hutson by head coach Martin St. Louis, is a logical candidate to play with Dobson instead. Rather than have Hutson hang back with Dobson and play on his off side with Guhle, you could pair him with another defensively aware defenseman on a separate pairing to spread the wealth.

Hutson and Struble is a Thing

There really isn’t a shortage of candidates there, with Hutson having received significant ice time with several partners last season, the veteran Matheson being the most common. However, if you’re the Canadiens, now that Hutson has emerged as capable of driving play on a pairing of his own, shouldn’t you take that as an opportunity to have Matheson, who, one way or another, is probably on his way out eventually as a pending unrestricted free agent, help form a separate pairing?

While Jayden Struble is currently projected to fill a seventh-defenseman role, maybe platooning in and out of the lineup with Arber Xhekaj, he also found significant success playing with Hutson, in fact success bordering on elite. Why not put them back together and spread the wealth further, dropping Matheson down to the third to give St. Louis yet another pairing he should be able to rely on without issue, one which would realistically exploit opposing team’s lacks of depth in the process?

The truth is, unless there isn’t any chemistry between Matheson and Alexandre Carrier, the next right-handed defenseman down the Canadiens’ depth chart, there no good rebuttal to the argument. And, not for nothing, but Matheson and Carrier formed the team’s most used pairing last season, bar none.

You could argue it’s a show of disrespect to a veteran like Matheson. You could argue it’s effectively predetermined Hutson will play with Matheson, so there’s no point arguing otherwise. You could argue moving Struble up the lineup is unnecessary when the team is at full health, but none of those arguments really hold water:

• An on-his-way-to-retiring David Savard played regular third-pairing minutes last season, and, while the 31-year-old Matheson clearly isn’t on his way out of the league, these are professionals who are expected to play where/as they’re needed.
• While they definitely could (and probably will) play Matheson with Hutson, their wealth of riches on defense means the Canadiens no longer need Matheson to.
• You could position Struble as more of a last-resort option with Hutson, but nothing could be further from the truth, based on their chemistry together.

It’s not inefficient to place a relatively unproven, young defenseman with Hutson (which is a strange sentence to write, considering Hutson’s 21 years of age) when “better” options like Matheson exist. If Hutson and Struble play incredibly well together, which they do, it’s just the opposite. It’s a way to maximize what you get out of an asset who would otherwise go unused, which would in effect give the Canadiens even more depth than they do.

To Keep or Trade Matheson, That Is the Question

While there’s a good case the Canadiens should keep Matheson in the organization the balance of the season (to fortify their defense for hopefully a long playoff run), it’s highly unlikely he stays past 2025-26, based on the team’s pipeline, which is relatively rife with young defensemen. On that everyone should agree. What sometimes gets lost in the ether is that Struble is one of those defensemen, on this, the eve of his 24th birthday. If the Habs fail to seize this opportunity to play him regularly they’d be letting his potential go to waste.

That would be the actual waste of resources (and talent), and for what? To play Matheson higher in the lineup, when, as a highly effective offensive defenseman himself, just one who’s unfortunately not as effective as Dobson or Hutson, he might have more of an impact on a separate pairing?

The one drawback is, by playing Matheson on the third pairing, presumably with Carrier, there wouldn’t be a regular spot for Xhekaj, whose size and toughness shone through as invaluable to the Canadiens these past playoffs. However, if you’re of the frame of mind that prioritizing an outgoing Matheson over Struble is wholly justifiable but doing the same with regard to Xhekaj is sacrilege of some sort, it’s almost the exact same conundrum, especially taking into account Struble’s capacity to lower the boom on opponents too.

The difference is there’s a significant sample size (334:47) that says Struble is incredibly valuable himself, playing with Hutson. It should almost be a question of whether the Habs can afford to trade Matheson because of his value as a veteran on an incredibly young team instead of the tangibles he brings on the regular. If not, it gets hard to justify finding room for him, when his value on the trade market remains high, especially if a proven second-line centre were to come back the other way. The Canadiens should have no problem finding room for someone like that. Objectively speaking, the same should hold true for Struble.