Hutch’s season gets off to good start

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This article was published 09/10/2015 (3648 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEWARK — Michael Hutchinson worked up a pretty good sweat in his first start of the season for the Winnipeg Jets.

And while the Jets goaltender was solid in Friday’s 3-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils, it turns out he also got all lathered up watching Ondrej Pavelec at work in Boston the night before.

“In Boston… it’s actually so much more stressful watching the game than playing the game,” said Hutchinson with a grin inside a cramped visitors dressing room at the Prudential Center. “I was jumping around on the bench a little bit when Pavs was making some of those big saves.

“The game always looks so much more difficult from the bench than it does on the ice. It was nice to get back into it and calm myself down after the first couple of minutes when I was a bit nervous.”

Hutchinson wasn’t peppered by a Devils team that looks to be very thin up front, but he was beaten only once on the 21 shots he faced — and Jiri Tlusty’s power-play goal was actually whacked into his own net by Jacob Trouba.

“He was battling hard in front of the net and the puck was rolling,” said Hutchinson. “It just rolled up, popped off his stick, hit the post and took an unlucky bounce.

“But overall I thought it was a pretty good performance. Our team played really well and really limited their scoring chances. Whenever they did get a good quality scoring chance we got our stick on the puck or seemed to make that blocked shot and it made my night a little easier than it would have been.”

The Jets goaltending remained a question mark for many pundits at the 2015-16 season opened this week. There are many who believe Pavelec’s career 92.0 save percentage last winter is likely to regress closer to the 90.6 mark he had posted in the years prior. And Hutchinson’s so-so second half had even more predicting that Connor Hellebuyck, one of the best goalie prospects in hockey, would soon be taking over the crease.

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Well, consider that in the first two games — albeit against an injury-plagued Bruins team and a Devils squad that is far from a contender — Pavelec and Hutchinson have surrendered just three goals. It’s early, yes, but it’s better to have the duo off to this kind of start than to have their games under the magnifying glass two days into the season.

Hutchinson was thrilled to get starting chores early, too, rather than having to wait.

“It’s awesome, especially at the start of the season where you’re trying to work off the summer rust,” he said. “Preseason is at one level of game play but the regular season is a whole different level of game. So, to get accustomed to the speed of the game this early in the season is really good for both Pavs and myself.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait