MONTREAL — There are smart bets and there are safe ones, and the one the Montreal Canadiens made on Kaiden Guhle Wednesday fits both categories.
Oh sure, a six-year, $33.3-million contract given to a 22-year-old who’s suffered a few injuries over his first two seasons in the NHL isn’t exactly a riskless proposition.
But the risk the Canadiens are taking by committing this money to Guhle now pales in comparison to the one they’d have been taking letting him play out the final season of his entry-level contract without an extension in place. With where his game is trending — and where the finances of the game are trending — the price over six years was most likely to be considerably higher by next summer, so there was no reason to wait.
Right now, Guhle’s game is in a good enough place to suggest the backend of his deal is likely to become a bargain and the front end of it will likely prove to be more than just palatable, making it just like a pair of other deals Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes has made since taking over in 2021.
Hughes identified Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky as young, core players and positioned eight-year deals with them to become bargains at the same time the Canadiens will be entering their competitive window — at a time when money tied up in aging veterans Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher will be coming off the books and the NHL’s salary cap will be reaching record heights. Those deals (like this one with Guhle) are smart bets, and relatively safe ones too.
That Guhle’s — like Slafkovsky’s — new contract doesn’t kick in for another year only increases the chances of it fitting both categories.
Guhle, who was chosen 16th overall in the 2020 Draft, has already shown he can match up against the best offensive players in the world on a nightly basis. He’s more than held his own under those circumstances—and from both sides of the blue line, averaging 20:43 and contributing at both ends of the ice—and it’s hard to imagine him doing anything but improving with the experience he’ll gain between now and the start of his new deal.
The Edmonton native will be getting paid well, considering knee, ankle and head injuries that sidelined him for 50 games spread over the last two seasons. It’s a good chunk of change for a defenceman who has yet to produce the type of offence that commands the type of lucrative, long-term commitment he received at his age.
But Guhle’s already the second-best defenceman on the Canadiens and trending towards becoming the best one in short order, and his decision to commit now before taking one more year to build up his case for a bigger contract speaks not only to his maturity but also his belief in what the Canadiens are building.
That’s a value add in itself.
“I feel it with this group. I feel it around the team. I just want to be there,” Guhle said during a late-afternoon Zoom conference with reporters. “I just want to be in Montreal, be with those guys and battle with those guys every night.”
It’s one thing to say it, but Guhle has proven that night-in, night-out since joining the Canadiens in the fall of 2022.
His commitment — along with his performance — sets the bar reasonably high for the other promising defencemen (like Lane Hutson, David Reinbacher and Logan Mailloux) rising through the system, and his contract helps create a hierarchical structure on the back end that’s similar to the one the Canadiens have up front (with captain Nick Suzuki being the highest-paid forward, at $7.87 million per season through 2030).
It sure makes for a healthy cap situation, affording the Canadiens the financial flexibility they’ll need when they have the incentive to dive into the free-agent market from the high board.
The NHL’s cap is expected to rise from $88 million in 2024-25 to at least $92 million in 2025-26, when extensions for Guhle and Slafkovsky kick in. It could be well over $100 million by 2027-28, and the Canadiens will need every penny they can save between now and then to meet contract demands at that time.
The deals with all four of their young, core members will help them do it. The financial benefits of those deals to the team are practically indisputable.
The benefits from a team-building perspective are also practically indisputable.
Winning teams need point-per-game, complete centres like Suzuki. Winning teams need prolific scorers like Caufield. Winning teams need power forwards like Slafkovsky. And all of them need versatile, steady, physical, play-in-all situations defencemen like Guhle.
Had he not exhibited all of those qualities already, we’d be talking about a contract for him like the ones Arber Xhekaj and Justin Barron signed on Tuesday.
But because Guhle has, this deal isn’t much of a gamble at all.
