Oct 16, 2026 3:30 PM
The Montreal Canadiens are much better with Kaiden Guhle than without him, and this season has made that clear, even if it's early.
While some lament the shortened training camp and the injury ninja striking across the league, Montreal Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle has hit the ground running despite missing the entire preseason. Still rehabbing from corrective surgery over the off-season, the Albertan missed the entire training camp and returned on October 10 against the Detroit Red Wings, missing the first four games of the season. Still, he doesn’t look like he missed a beat.
The fact that he was able to get back on the ice just three weeks after surgery did allow him to work on some things while he was rehabbing:
I did get to work on actually a lot of my puck skills, like while I was doing my rehab stuff, I basically had three or four rehab skates with our trainers and then I was with Big Cat [Adam Nicholas], I got to work on a lot of touches and a lot of puck skills, stuff that I wanted to work on this summer, that I really didn’t get a chance to so, maybe in a more condensed skating almost every day and in a more condense kind of timeline, trying to get back and working on stuff, that it would have been this summer, but I feel like I did work on some stuff while I was rehabbing too, which was nice.
Clearly, the defenseman is familiar with the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
While he skated only 15:33 in his first game when the Habs used seven defensemen, he’s had to handle a lot of minutes in the next two games, with Mike Matheson sidelined by a yet-to-be-revealed injury. Against the Buffalo Sabres, Guhle spent 25:25 on the ice in an overtime win, and 22:22 in a losing effort against the Washington Capitals.
In just three games, the 6-foot-3 and 202-pound blueliner has landed nine hits, just six behind team leader Josh Anderson, who has 15 in seven games. More than the number of hits he's thrown, though, is their impact on the team. In 2025, when Cole Caufield was asked what Guhle does for the team, he famously replied that the rearguard buries people and chances are, his answer wouldn’t change today. The hulking defenseman gives his team momentum with his bone-crushing hits, and it makes a difference.
He knows what he’s doing with those hits, and he doesn’t fear an opponent's reaction; in fact, he craves it. There’s no issue with keeping up with the players that have had a full preseason and have played all games thus far, and he’s ready to step up and handle even more action in Matheson’s absence:
I’m excited; it will be good to get some more minutes and have a bit of a bigger role while Billy’s out. […] It’s just next man up. I think we’ve had that mentality; unfortunately, I’ve had injuries in the past, and we’ve got a lot of depth on this team, guys willing to step up, so we’ll just have to do that and make do while Mike’s out. He’s obviously a huge part of our team, but we’ll be alright; we’ve got a lot of good players who can fill that role.
Obviously, Guhle’s been in Matheson’s shoes; he’s missed 124 of a possible 335 games since he joined the team in 2022-23, and if he can finally stay healthy, it will be a huge relief for the organization. He’s part of the team’s young core, but they’ve had to do without him for so many games that we’ve rarely seen the full Habs defense over the years. Now that Guhle’s back, Matheson’s missing, and we may see David Reinbacher sooner rather than later, giving us a glimpse of the future of the Canadiens’ defense corps.
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