The Washington Capitals could be getting one of the top prospects in all of hockey on their roster as soon as this week.
Cole Hutson, a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, is set to play what is potentially his final college hockey game for Boston University on Wednesday night. The Terriers will match up with Vermont in the Opening Round of the single-elimination 2026 Hockey East Tournament.
Given BU’s rough 16-16-2 record this year, they will need to run the table in their conference and win every game to qualify for the NCAA Tournament and extend their season.
The Terriers will come into the game against Vermont after dropping their regular-season finale 4-3 to UMass Lowell on Saturday. BU played Vermont twice in early December, splitting the two games, which were both at home in Boston.
Hutson is the team’s leading scorer with 30 points (9g, 21a) in 33 games, struggling to match his high-scoring 48-point (14g, 34a) freshman season on a much weaker Terriers team. The next-highest-scoring player on this year’s BU roster is Cole Eiserman with 25 points, and only one other player, Jack Harvey, has hit the 20-point mark.
Capitals general manager Chris Patrick recently brought Hutson’s name up unprompted during his post-trade deadline media availability, hinting that the team will try their best to get him under contract as soon as they can. Patrick spoke about Hutson’s potential match on a defense pair with the recently acquired Timothy Liljegren.
“If Cole Hutson comes out of college, like we hope he does, maybe [Liljegren’s] a guy that you can pair up with him and just gives Carbs some options,” Patrick said.
Hutson has previously said he’s in no rush to end his college career, but also mentioned in December that he texts with Capitals forward Ryan Leonard “pretty much every day,” and that he would be super excited and nervous to join Leonard with the Caps “if I’m lucky enough.”
“Players on the team just randomly text sometimes to check in,” Hutson said. “Someone from the staff or players reaches out every day or every other day. It shows the kind of organization they’ve built. It’s a lot of pressure, but good pressure. They trust you not to let the culture dip. That’s really cool and super exciting.”
The Capitals believe in Hutson’s NHL future so much that keeping him with their organization was one of the primary reasons Patrick and his staff didn’t pursue a trade for star defenseman Quinn Hughes any harder. Hutson is likely seen as the heir to the throne that John Carlson leaves as one of the team’s top offensive weapons from the backend, alongside Jakob Chychrun.
