NYIHN Exclusive: Grant Hutton Talks His Season, Bridgeport, UFA Status

The New York Islanders experienced a massive number of injuries to defensemen this year. In any organization in any given season, injuries are going to happen. It’s an unavoidable fact of life in sports.

What happened to the Islanders, both New York and Bridgeport, felt particularly cruel at various points.

For the NHL Club, Ryan Pulock played 74 games, leading the way defensively. Everyone else missed 11+ games. In Bridgeport, Samuel Bolduc played 69 of 72 games. Behind him, Travis Mitchell and Calle Odelius came next, playing 65 and 62 games respectively.

During times of injuries, the NY Islanders called up multiple players from Bridgeport. That included Grant Hutton.

Hutton, 29, has been with the organization since Lou Lamoriello signed him from Miami (Ohio) in the Spring of 2019. Hutton has signed two additional contracts since then, He’s played 256 games for Bridgeport, the 13th most in franchise history.

He’s also played 31 games for the big club, including 13 this season. In limited minutes, he filled the gap well and played on the penalty kill.

Now, as a 29-year-old right-shot defenseman, he’s approaching unrestricted free agency. The Islanders brought in three defensemen during the season, including two righties, which could leave his future potentially in question, depending on his priorities.

The solid, stay-at-home defenseman has proven capable in a pinch in previous years. In Bridgeport, he wore a letter this season and is now entering a true veteran leadership role with that team. He’s one of the very few defensemen there with experience. Between the callups and his own injury trouble late in the year, he only played 29 games with them this season.

With Hutton in the lineup, Bridgeport went 7-20-2, which sounds bad until I tell you that without him, they went 8-30-5.

Suffice it to say, he’s an important piece down in the AHL. I was able to catch up with Hutton this week to dissect what went wrong in Bridgeport and how he’s approaching his next contract.

Hutton On His Injury:

After being sent back down in January, Hutton would get injured at the end of January, then only play five more games the rest of the season. Hutton described the injury:

“It was a freak injury. It was an upper-body thing. I’d play, but it was bothering me, and it would actually get worse. But I was playing well [at the time]. So, we were between a rock and a hard place. As we got closer down the stretch, it kind of became clear that, unfortunately, we [Bridgeport] weren’t going to make it. So I rested some. Then, with the [NY] Islanders still in the race, I wanted to be ready and be a black ace, something I’ve done a lot. Every time I played, it was back to square one. Once it kind of became clear that the [NY] Islanders weren’t going to make it either, we decided to shut it down so I can be ready to have a good, full summer and be ready for camps.”

The injury hurt Bridgeport quite badly. Less than a full week after Hutton first came out of the lineup, Aidan Fulp suffered a season-ending injury. Wyatt Newpower, another right-shot defenseman, had been battling injuries.

Organization-Wide Injury Crisis:

Timing-wise wise in the organization, this was all happening in late January, early February. At that exact time, Ryan Pulock, Noah Dobson, and Scott Mayfield all suffered injuries. On February 8, both AHL and NHL teams played. The Islanders’ defense that night consisted of Dennis Cholowski, Adam Pelech, Alexander Romanov, Scott Perunovich, Adam Boqvist, and Tony DeAngelo.

That’s four lefties and two righties. In Bridgeport? They dressed and played with six lefties. They did so until Wyatt Newpower returned a little over a week later. At one point, the Islanders’ right side organization-wide depth chart had only three players on NHL-level contracts, with over half a dozen guys injured. Hutton summed it up like this:

“People look at the injuries with the big club, and don’t realize that it takes away from Bridgeport. [In November], I’m up in the NHL, Bolduc’s up, George’s up. It takes away from Bridgeport, no matter how much you plan for it. Then, in February, Bridgeport was in a similar situation, down a bunch of guys. Plus, the [NY Islanders] have injuries on top of what we had. And none of it was short-term stuff either.

With both teams, we’d stay in the fight, and somehow, guys would keep going down. Eventually, you’d get ’em back, but it takes time. You’d lose 3-4 more guys. It never ended.”

On What Else Went Wrong for Bridgeport:

As Hutton outlined, the injuries crushed Bridgeport early. Losing Isaiah George and Hutton for a time, along with Travis Mitchell going on the Western Canada trip, hamstrung Bridgeport severely. Hutton did not want to blame it all on that. He admitted, the team had a lot of struggles in dependent of that:

“It was a really tough year down there. We struggled in a lot of facets of the game. Even when we played well, we couldn’t find ways to win. When it’s a full year of that, you try everything. You try different lineups and warm-up routines. It’s easy to look at the record and say ‘nobody cares’, but these guys all care so much. I can’t describe just how frustrating it all was. Just super frustrating all around.”

Hutton then went on to bring up another issue for Bridgeport. Goaltending. For the NHL Islanders, Semyon Varlamov suffered a season-ending injury in November. Marcus Hogberg, signed from Europe to be Bridgeport’s starter, went to the NHL and never came back.

That left a struggling Jakub Skarek, who also went to the NHL for over a month. Bridgeport then had to lean on Henrik Tikkanen and Hunter Miska, and eventually, Tristan Lennox.

“You look at goaltending, we lost Hogberg. Then Skarek’s gone [to the NHL]. So much instability with lineups in both clubs. It’s easy to point the finger at those things. I don’t want to do that, but it felt like this year, both clubs got destroyed by it.”

Wrapping Up the Bridgeport Discussion:

Hutton went on to outline that Bridgeport uses a lot of college guys. He talked about the challenges in going from playing roughly 30-35 games in college to a full, 70-80 game schedule. In Bridgeport, he praised the way the coaching staff handled practices and player development throughout the year:

“The AHL schedule is a challenge to the coaching staff and management. You play condensed, high-travel, busy weekends, then have a lot of midweeks off. So, how do you spend that time wisely? This year, we took a step up in development. Specifically, [Johnny] Boychuk was huge for development guys in Bridgeport. He enabled our guys to grow and develop more, especially the defense. 

Same for the coaching staff as a whole. There’s no sense in beating the s**t out of guys in January. We had skills days, development days.  You could see areas of our game improve in relation to where we were improving. As an older guy, I appreciated it. And I had to set an example, along with a guy like Chris Terry. We kept to it, worked on our skills. Showed a lot of the younger guys what it takes to compete every day. Terry, specifically, man, at his age, his practice details, all of it. He’s amazing to have. Guys like that in the locker room set a great example. We had a lot of camaraderie that people can’t always see.”

Some of you may look at that and think that he’s ignoring the record and the fact that Bridgeport finished in last place. He’s not. Throughout our conversation, the word “disappointing” came up constantly. Every player takes immense pride in their game, and it’s something that’s often overlooked in the minutiae of a really bad record.

“I look back on the season. There’s not a whole lot of positives for Bridgeport. You get halfway through a season like this, and it’s going how it did, it’s so easy for guys to mail it in. We didn’t have any of that in Bridgeport. Guys stuck together, even when we were eliminated from the playoffs. We’re not going to roll over. You saw the antics late in the year. We were fighting and pushing, we care so much. We wanted to push hard for our fans. Here, it’s the same fans since 2018-19 when I arrived. You see the same folks coming to every game for us. It really sucked to give them that record at home.

Grant Hutton Wears An ‘A’ For Bridgeport

“Super disappointing [to not be in the playoffs]. We’ve played in the playoffs while I’ve been here [Bridgeport and NY], it’s the best time of the year. It’s so hard to be home for the summer, watching so many guys still playing. Definitely a disappointing year.”

His Future:

Finally, we addressed his future. Hutton’s a pending UFA. All 256 games of pivotal experience for the AHL squad, along with proven strength and ability as a seventh defenseman, could walk away on July 1. 

“I’ve been back with the Islanders every season since 2018-19, since I left college. We’ve been extremely loyal to each other. My first priority would absolutely be to come back to the Islanders. If I’m back here in New York and Bridgeport, my goal is to be back and make the playoffs. Both teams are built for the playoffs and thrive at that time of year.”

Hutton only has so much control. Right now, he doesn’t even have someone to negotiate with after the ouster of Lou Lamoriello:

“It’s a weird period of waiting, right now. All the players here expect some change to happen. As for Lou, I have nothing but great things to say about Lou. He brought the absolute highest level of professionalism. The opportunity he gave me, I’m forever thankful.”

To me, for any new management coming in, keeping him would be a no-brainer. He’s a former captain in college, wears a letter now for Bridgeport, and has been a part of multiple playoff appearances with them. He’d be the first to tell you he doesn’t play a flashy style of hockey, but it’s been more than effective throughout his seven years with the organization.