Hi everyone! I was watching Montreal against Los Angeles the other day, and I was amazed to find out that when the horn sounded to signal the end of the game, Montreal’s rookie defenseman Lane Hutson had actually logged thirty minutes of ice time. He had just seven games of NHL experience, including the game that night, so it was an impressive outing for the 20-year-old. There was of course a very logical reason for Hutson’s huge effort. It helped that coach Martin St. Louis likes to give his young players every opportunity to shine, but it was also due in part to an injury to number one defenseman Mike Matheson early in the contest. That said, St. Louis could have called on someone with more experience to log those extra minutes, but Hutson was given the opportunity and he took full advantage looking he did this sort of thing every night. Something tells me that by the end of this season, he will have done so quite often.

Hockey is a sport where a player is often asked to step it up or take one for the team. I’m sure it was never easy when a Seals goaltender was asked to step up considering most nights there was usually somewhere in the neighbourhood of 35 or 40 shots (often more!) directed at the Oakland cage, so when Gilles Meloche was forced to take over for Marv Edwards, who was injured near the end of warm-up, Meloche probably wasn’t too thrilled, but he did a great job nonetheless. On this night, October 24, 1972, Meloche did his best to keep the Seals in the game, but the end result was a 5-0 defeat to the hometown Kings. This week’s article was penned by Oakland Tribune sportswriter John Porter, and you can read it here.

I hope you’ve all been enjoying the start of the new NHL season, and hopefully your favourite team is not Colorado or Nashville (Seriously, what the hell’s going on there?). Until next time, stay gold!