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When Cole Hutson arrived at the Washington Capitals IcePlex, he was starstruck by his new teammates.

But someone was missing.

Even before the young American defenseman was selected by the Capitals in the second round of the 2023 NHL draft, he had always looked up to John Carlson.

“I was so excited to get to play with him,” Hutson said. “He’s obviously an American defenseman and a legend in the game.”

Carlson seemed just as excited. He kept in touch with him, Hutson’s former coach Anthony Day said.

But, 12 days before Hutson made his NHL debut, the Capitals dealt his role model before the trade deadline.

Hutson was heartbroken.

So were his future teammates, many of whom woke up to the news. Alex Ovechkin called it the toughest day of his career.

In addition to Carlson, the Capitals traded veteran leader Nic Dowd.

The players had no choice but to push through with a game the next day and an outside shot at the playoffs.

But they were gifted a spark over the next week as rumors that an exciting young defenseman would be joining them once his college team lost in the NCAA playoffs.

“Obviously losing Nic Dowd and John Carlson is something that you can’t really replace in the locker room, just the way they speak to people and how open and funny and loud and excited they are to come to the rink,” 10-year NHL veteran Dylan Strome said. “And I think Cole’s probably energized our group a little bit and made it a little exciting coming down the stretch here,”

Hutson has stepped into the roster spot Carlson left open — he’s got two points in four games, with his ice time steadily increasing — but the rookie is adept at evading the shadows even as he follows in others’ footsteps. The Capitals are a long shot to make the playoffs after a middling March, but early returns suggest Hutson will be a big part of ushering in a new era.

The family game

There was no option but to play hockey.

The third of four boys, Hutson tried several sports, at his parents’ urging, but gravitated toward hockey — just like his brothers.

Hutson emulated the way his oldest brother, Quinn (a 24-year-old winger who has played four games for Edmonton this year), sees the ice and tried to “copy and paste his shot.” But most of his qualities he got from Lane, the Montreal star who is two years older.

Although he played center for a short time when he was young, Lane Hutson was a defenseman, so Cole wanted to be a defenseman, too.

Day, who coached Cole Hutson’s team for three years with the North Jersey Avalanche, said all the Hutson brothers have a rare competitive spirit, forged by the standard they held each other to.

On their home rink, the brothers would run two-on-two drills. There, Lane and Cole Hutson developed a deceptiveness that’s become characteristic to their games.

“I think, when you’re playing against a guy like Lane or Quinn, you never want to lose the puck, so you have to work to get it back,” Cole Hutson said. “So I think just holding on to pucks when I was really young made me pretty deceptive and never want to give it up.”

Playing against his older brothers meant Hutson was ready to play up with kids two and three years older than he was. Even then, his skills were effective.

Day remembers a five-on-three penalty kill when Hutson snagged the puck and played keep-away for so long the other team got frustrated and changed shifts. Opposing fans got restless, and players slammed their sticks as they skated to the bench.

Despite that, Hutson said, he doesn’t think he’s deceptive enough to beat Quinn and Lane: “I just try my best.”

While Cole Hutson was on the Avalanche, Lane made it into the National Team Development Program. His success there put his younger brother on coach Nick Fohr’s radar.

“He was somebody that I was tracking and watching a lot,” Fohr said.

From afar, it appeared to Fohr that Cole Hutson was similar to his brother, from their mannerisms to how they played. Fohr had worked with Lane Hutson on his deceptiveness, teaching him to use it at opportune times rather than relying on it.

He was prepared to work on it with Cole Hutson.

Hutson made the team, like Lane, and then was drafted into the NHL, like Lane. He then went to play at Boston University, like Lane and Quinn, and is making his jump to the NHL after two college seasons, like Lane.

“Everywhere Cole goes, Lane was just there,” Day said. “[...] He’s always had to push himself to achieve the level that Lane just set.”

He did it, and he did it in an almost identical way. But he’s had to find his own approach, too.

What sets him apart

They play the same position, they have similar characteristics, they’re built similarly and they both seem to have quiet personalities. Cole Hutson is proud to be like his brother.

But, once you spend time with them, you see clear distinctions between the brothers even in areas they were most alike. Such as the subtleties to their deception.

“They do it similarly, but they also do it differently,” Fohr said. “... There’s a little bit of a difference in the way that they’re able to shift defenders, just by posturing pucks. Just by making it look like they’re going to do something else, they have that ability to sell something without giving up the play that they’re actually doing.”

Day, who has known the brothers for years, said Lane Hutson tends to beat you with his shiftiness while Cole lulls you with how smoothly he plays before he strikes.

Cole Hutson’s desire to be the guy when everything’s on the line is also unique to him.

“He’s got that factor to him that’s just, like, ‘Give me the puck. I want to do this. I’m going to go take care of this,’” Fohr said.

Fohr remembers the look Hutson gave him as their game against the University of North Dakota went to overtime. He heard the unspoken message loud and clear: Get me on the ice so I can win this game. And, sure enough, Hutson scored the winning goal.

The narratives

Fohr fielded many questions about Lane Hutson and whether he could translate his game to the NHL. All of them centered on his size.

At 5 feet, 8 inches, Lane was undersize for any player, much less a defenseman. But Fohr insisted the Hutsons had elite attributes — and they looked different. In a game built on muscle memory, the Hutsons present a different look that throws off opponents. And, by the time the league catches up to them, Fohr is confident they will have adapted as well.

The best defense is offense, Day said, and both of the Hutsons are good at keeping it in the offensive zone. But, when they find themselves in their own zone, their offensive instincts help them as defenders because they can read the opponent.

A team took a chance on Lane Hutson, but it waited until the second round. The “chance” has more than paid off for the Canadiens. He made his debut at 19 and went on to play all 82 games the following year — winning the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year. This season, as a 21-year-old, he has a plus-minus of 28 while averaging over 23 minutes a night, and he’s scored 11 goals with 58 assists.

“I think me and him, both, just growing up our whole life, we were kind of looked down at,” Cole Hutson said. “Just like a bunch of people always saying we’re going nowhere, we’re too small and whatever. But for him to do what he did his first few years in the NHL is pretty special.”

Cole Hutson’s résumé at this point in his career is even better than Lane’s. He set the NTDP record for single-season points by a defenseman with 68 in 61 games. The next year, he added the record for most career points by a defenseman in the NTDP.

In 2023 he tied the IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship all-time assists record (20), and in 2025 he became the first defenseman to lead scoring among all positions at the World Junior Championship.

And yet teams still passed on him in the first round. Hutson said he was not happy; Day described him as pissed off.

Finally, with the 43rd pick of the 2024 draft, the Capitals selected him. Coincidentally, it was the team he and Lane had predicted the night before.

“Everything happened for a reason,” Cole Hutson said. “... I always wanted to go to a team that I knew wanted me — not to take a chance on me maybe knowing, ‘OK, this kid might pan out.’ I wanted a team that’s like, ‘OK, this kid is going to pan out and play at the next level.’”

Finding his way

Ryan Leonard told him the nerves would dissipate after warmups. Leonard was wrong.

The two former NDTP teammates turned Capitals draft picks turned college rivals had finally reunited in Washington, where Cole Hutson was making his NHL debut this month.

Leonard had been sharing advice because he made his own debut the year before. He took Hutson to lunch when he arrived and then excitedly watched while Hutson made his rookie lap (players making their debut get a moment alone on the ice during warmups). But, for as much as Leonard has helped, he missed the mark on the nerves.

“I was like, ‘Dude, they’re not going away,’” Hutson said.

His nervousness belies the fact that Hutson is no stranger to big moments or steep competition.

After being drafted by the Capitals, he followed his older brothers to BU, where he played on a team with Quinn for the first time.

He experienced what it was like to go on a championship run and what it was like to go against bigger opponents. Although he’d played up a year or two as a kid, in college, he was sometimes facing players four or even five years older (most college hockey players play junior hockey before going to school).

When he returned for a second shot at a national title, the season didn’t go as planned but it only served to make him tougher.

“That was a different type of year for him, right?” Day said. “They didn’t have the team success they had last year. So I think that’s just scar tissue that he needed.”

The time in Boston University’s weight room also helped him get bigger. Although still on the smaller side, Hutson doesn’t look out of place standing next to the NHL stars.

He doesn’t look out of place playing next to them, either.

Capitals coach Spencer Carberry eased Hutson into his debut, playing him 16 minutes, a low amount for a defenseman. But it was enough ice time for Hutson to introduce himself to the NHL with a goal.

Impressed by his performance, Strome was ready to declare him an “elite hockey player” after just one game.

“The way he controlled the puck — like every time he got the puck, it seemed like he was going to hold on to it until he made a good play,” Strome said.

So far, Hutson hasn’t proved him wrong.

Even though the nerves still hit before every game, it hasn’t been evident to anyone watching, including his former coaches who know him well. He’s faced down Olympians Jack Hughes and Nathan MacKinnon and escaped with a plus-minus of zero in his first three games. By his fourth game, he had surpassed 20 minutes of ice time.

“We’re confident,” Carberry said after his second game. “... I thought early in the game he was a little bit better. When we get back on our heels, he had to defend a little bit more, and there’s a few things. But overall body of work, thought he was good again tonight. ... What we as coaches and as fans are going to come to appreciate is you can tell the hockey IQ.”

Day and Fohr said Hutson has demonstrated a little bit of everything he can do in the first four games. But he’s just scratching the surface, especially because he needs to start shooting more, Day said.

Every day, Hutson’s new teammates talk in the locker room about the defenseman who left. The defenseman who just arrived, meanwhile, eagerly absorbs the stories about his hero.

Then he goes on the ice and proves game by game why they should be excited about the future.