Cole Hutson attended the Washington Capitals’ 6-3 Game 3 loss to the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre on Friday night. However, he wasn’t there to support the Caps.
The 18-year-old defenseman donned a Canadiens ugly Christmas sweater and sat with his family to support his older brother, Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson. PK Subban, a former Habs defenseman in his own right and current TV analyst for ESPN, posted a photo posing with Hutson and his mom, Julie, after the Canadiens’ win.
“@colehutson23 and @lanehutson_ and the Hutson family are taking over the NHL,” Subban wrote.
Hutson’s allegiance to his brother makes sense as he is not yet signed to an entry-level contract by the Capitals. The talented defender announced earlier this month that he will return for his sophomore season at Boston University after falling just one win shy of a national championship during his freshman campaign.
Ahead of the series’ first game, Rob Hutson, the patriarch of the family, discussed Cole’s potential conundrum while on The Sick Podcast with Grant McCagg and Shayne Gaumond.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Cole and Quinn will be in Montreal on Friday and Sunday, so if they want their seats that their brother’s paying for, they better be cheering for him, which I’m sure they are,” Hutson joked. “Yeah, and that’s one of the nicer things we don’t have to deal with this season. The boys battling it out against each other.”
Quinn Hutson, the eldest of the three brothers, signed an entry-level deal with the Edmonton Oilers after finishing his final college season at BU. He made his NHL debut and played in two games for the Oilers at the end of the regular season, but does not appear to be in the team’s playoff roster plans.
Cole, now fully into his offseason and only a few days out from college class finals, echoed some of his father’s thoughts about his rooting interests when attending the games in Montreal while being interviewed on Mike Bartner’s In The Box podcast earlier this week. However, he confirmed that his loyalties will definitely be more split than anyone else in his family.
“I feel like I’ll be cheering for – I mean, I’m going to be sitting in Lane’s seats, so I’ll probably be up on my feet when both teams score, to be honest,” Hutson said. “I think, obviously, I’ll cheer for Lane a bit more than the Capitals, but hopefully I’ll be in the Capitals’ seat in a few years. When it comes playoff time, if we ever play the Canadiens again, I hope both my parents are rooting for me, and I think we’ll take them down, for sure.”
Unfortunately for the Capitals, Hutson was on his feet much more for the Canadiens in Game 3. The Habs controlled play throughout the hotly-contested game and became just the third team the entire season to score six goals against the Caps.
Hutson met with Capitals bench boss Spencer Carbery after the game in the back channels of the Bell Centre. In his first playoff press conference last week, Carbery mentioned Cole, warning the media that he’d likely mix up the brothers’ names right after unknowingly doing so.
Friday night’s matchup wasn’t the first Capitals game that Hutson has attended this year. The 2025 NCAA Rookie of the Year also showed up in Boston earlier this month to see one of his good friends, Ryan Leonard, make his NHL debut with the Caps against the Bruins.
Leonard and Lane Hutson, his former teammate on the 2024 Team USA World Juniors team, held hands during the crazy bench brawl between Tom Wilson and Josh Anderson during Game 3.
Hutson will likely sign his entry-level deal and be in the Capitals’ organization as soon as next April or perhaps even sooner, depending on how well BU does in the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
