Marc Bergevin used to say, “There are players who get you into the playoffs and players who get you through the playoffs.”
That line feels tailor-made for Kaiden Guhle, the Canadiens defenseman Bergevin grabbed in the first round of the 2020 NHL Draft with the 16th pick. At the time, Bergevin raved about the package Guhle brought to the table: “Size, skating, range - he has some offensive skills (and) he's hard to play against,” Bergevin said after drafting him. “He checks all the boxes for us.”
Guhle backed up that profile in last season’s playoff run. The 6-foot-3, 202-pound blueliner led Montreal with 51 hits in 19 games as the Canadiens reached the Eastern Conference final before falling to the Carolina Hurricanes.
He also topped the team in penalty minutes with 46, finished third in blocked shots with 40, and added eight assists while averaging 20:29 of ice time. His eight assists were second on the club behind Lane Hutson’s 13.
And then there’s the edge that makes him such a difficult playoff defender to deal with. Off the ice, Guhle comes across as one of the nicest and most polite young men you could meet. On the ice, as he put it, he can be “a prick.”
That part of his game clearly suits the postseason.
“It’s just fun to do that,” Guhle said during last season's playoff run.” I like getting in guys' faces, pissing guys off.
I like when the other team's yelling at me and kind of giving me s---. If I feel like teams aren't doing that to me in a game, I feel like I'm not really doing my job.
“It’s fun being in the fire,” Guhle added. “It gets you into the game.
I want other teams' players to be playing the Habs and think: 'We got to play this guy and this guy and this D core.' That's like a pride thing, I guess, more than anything.
It's fun to be like that.”
The problem for Montreal is that Guhle still hasn’t managed to stay healthy through a full regular season. Over four years with the Canadiens, he has missed 120 regular-season games, including 43 last season. Some of that has come with the territory of the way he plays, but plenty of it has just been bad luck.
Two years ago, he needed emergency appendix surgery the day before training camp after already missing the final seven games of the previous season with an upper-body injury. He got back in time to open the 2024-25 season, only to suffer another upper-body injury in his fifth game that kept him out for five more. Then, in late January, he took an awkward fall and cut himself with his own skate, leading to surgery for a lacerated quadriceps muscle that cost him 21 games.
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The uncertainty around the Norris Trophy speaks to a broader challenge smaller players have long faced in hockey, where reputation and perception can lag behind actual impact. Hutson has kept working to push past those old biases, but within the Canadiens room the bigger prize still matters most, with the focus firmly on winning the Stanley Cup rather than collecting trophies for one player along the way. [Read more 🡒]
Canadiens Prospect Aatos Koivu Is Drawing Bigger NHL Buzz Than Expected
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Still, the excitement comes with the usual prospect caution attached. Koivu remains early in the process, and his long-term path is still far from settled, which is why the next step matters so much for Montreal. For now, the more immediate question is whether he can continue building toward being useful in the AHL picture, where the Laval Rocket could eventually have a role for him if his game keeps trending the right way. [Read more 🡒]
Canadiens Suddenly Face A Tough Samuel Montembeault Decision
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The latest wrinkle comes from Edmonton, where a sudden goaltending need has put the Oilers back into the mix as a possible fit. Hughes would have to weigh whether the timing is right to revisit that path, especially with cap space tight enough that any deal would likely need more than a simple one-for-one structure. For Montreal, it is another reminder that Montembeaults status is still fluid, and the question is whether the Canadiens want to keep managing that uncertainty or finally turn it into a move. [Read more 🡒]