An embarrassing draft revelation involving the Canucks is suddenly blowing up online
Lane Hutson and Martin St-Louis are the names that make this old Canucks draft call look brutal now.
The new claim making the rounds is simple and ugly for Vancouver.
Rick Dhaliwal said the Canucks had Hutson on a «do not draft» list at one point in his draft year because they felt he was too small.
That is the kind of report that gets embarrassing fast once the player turns into exactly what teams are hunting.
And that is why this one lands so hard on the old regime.
At the time, Patrik Allvin was the general manager running Vancouver's hockey side. Ryan Johnson is in that chair now, but this miss belongs to the previous front-office thinking, not the current one.
That distinction matters.
Because this is not just a random hindsight complaint. It speaks to a scouting mindset that saw size first and skill second, and that kind of mistake can haunt a team for years.
(CrossOver)
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Patrik Allvin's Canucks are facing backlash after shocking draft revelation
What makes this even worse is the type of player Hutson has become in Montreal.
He is not some fringe success story who barely squeaked through. He is the exact sort of modern defenseman teams spend all year trying to find: slippery, smart, dynamic with the puck, and dangerous in transition.
So hearing that Vancouver once had him on a «do not draft» list is rough.
Honestly, it is more than rough. It is a front-office self-own.
There is always risk in the draft. Every team misses on players. But a «do not draft» tag is different from simply passing on someone. That is planting your flag and saying this player is not for us.
Now that looks terrible.
And for Canucks fans, that part should sting. This franchise spent years talking about getting younger, smarter, and more dynamic, yet a player with Hutson's profile apparently scared them off because of height.
That is old-school thinking in the worst way.
It also explains why some of Vancouver's past decisions felt so stuck. If the organization was still ruling players out like that, then it was never really seeing the game where it was going.
That is why this report feels so awkward for Allvin's era.
Ryan Johnson does not wear this one. He inherited the aftermath of moves and ideas that already helped dig the hole.
But this story is still a reminder of how easy it is for one bad draft lens to cost a team a player who could have changed everything on its blue line.
And now Montreal gets the payoff while Vancouver gets the embarrassment.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 18, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Zachary Bolduc | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Phillip Danault | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Greenway | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kaiden Guhle | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Beck Malenstyn | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ryan McLeod | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Owen Power | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nick Suzuki | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zach Benson | - | - | - | |
| Bowen Byram | - | - | - | |
| Cole Caufield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||