Canadiens rookie Hudon shows promise and poise

Winger producing despite lack of prime ice time, says Marc Dumont.

During the last two seasons, we’ve seen a significant uptick in rookies playing for the Montreal Canadiens. Last season, it was Artturi Lehkonen who stole the show. This season, Victor Mete and Charles Hudon have played relatively significant roles with the team. But of all the rookies, Hudon has seen the most ice time, playing more than 800 minutes for the Canadiens this season.

Hudon’s eight goals and 16 assists in 59 games might seem like an underwhelming total, but pro-rate it to 82 games and that amounts to 33 points, which is a perfectly respectable result for a rookie in today’s low-scoring NHL. In fact, Lehkonen finished his 2016-17 rookie season with 28 points in 73 games or 31 points if they were pro-rated to 82 games. While Lehkonen’s scoring prowess (18 goals) during his rookie campaign tends to garner more praise from fans, those same fans should be excited by Hudon’s play despite his low goal total.

Hudon spent the majority of his season playing in a shutdown role alongside Tomas Plekanec, which shows the trust Canadiens head coach Claude Julien has in the rookie winger. Despite playing on a defensive line, Hudon’s underlying numbers are fairly impressive.

Hudon is among the Canadiens’ top five players when it comes to creating individual high-danger shots, as well as creating scoring opportunities via rebounds.

But raw totals don’t tell the whole story. Top-line players tend to get more minutes, which inflates their numbers. To get a real sense of Hudon’s ability to create chances, we need to take a look at how many individual scoring chances he creates per 60 minutes of ice time. When we use that metric (see graphic), Hudon is third on the team, just behind Lehkonen and just ahead of captain Max Pacioretty.

While Hudon is on the ice, the Canadiens tend to control the flow of play. During his shifts, the Canadiens have a 54.6 per cent share of the shots, a 55.8 per cent share of the scoring chances and a very impressive 59 per cent share of the high-danger shots.

While Hudon is quite strong individually, he meshes well with his linemates and spends more time in the offensive zone than in the defensive zone. Furthermore, the bulk of his production has come during even-strength play. He’s tied with Alex Galchenyuk and Phillip Danault for fourth on the team with 16 points during 5-on-5 play, behind Brendan Gallagher (22), Paul Byron (20) and Plekanec (18).

Hudon is also second on the team, again behind Gallagher, in terms of creating rushes. And when it comes to stealing the puck, he’s second only to Jonathan Drouin with 31 take-aways. To top it all off, he’s third on the Canadiens in terms of 5-on-5 shots with 126, one behind Pacioretty.

Not bad for a rookie.

As we all know, statistics don’t tell the whole story. However, anyone who has watched the Canadiens this season will attest that Hudon has improved as the season has progressed. He’s creating chances during most shifts and his passing has been fantastic. His confidence is through the roof recently, which has allowed him to slow down the play and use his vision to feed linemates with quick, accurate passes. He has a nose for the net and the type of intensity that coaches love.

During a season marred by disappointing individual results, Hudon’s play is a very encouraging sign of things to come. He’s only 23 and while the strong statistics aren’t a guarantee he’ll improve by leaps and bounds next season, they’re a good indication that Hudon is just getting started in the NHL and the best is yet to come.

It’s even more encouraging that he’s managed the impressive individual numbers during a season in which most of his teammates saw a decline and one filled with disappointment and failure at the club level.

If all goes well and he keeps up his promising play, Hudon can become a very important source of secondary scoring for the Canadiens for years to come. Marc Dumont is an analyst and editor for The Athletic Montreal. Note: Statistics courtesy of naturalstattrick.com