The Montreal Canadiens started this season in a very similar spot to the past two seasons.
That would be with key players falling nearly every day to injuries. The team did get through training camp with just Christian Dvorak and Chris Wideman being on the sidelines. They even made it through the opening night of the season without anyone succumbing to injury.
That was it though. In the second game of the season Kirby Dach was injured and it ended his season. A torn ACL and MCL after being hit into the bench by Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi put an end to Dach’s year after just one and a half games.
The Canadiens third game of the season saw another key young player leave with injury, though we do not know yet how long he will be out. One of the top insiders in the game seems to think he will be out for a little while.
It was Kaiden Guhle who left the Habs loss to the Minnesota Wild in the second period with an upper body injury. He did not return to the game, and there was some speculation online that it was a broken wrist, but none of that would be considered to be from anyone with inside knowledge of the team.
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet has the inside scoop on everything going on in the NHL and he wrote that Guhle will be out “for a little while.” That is not an official update, but it does give the impression the team will be without their key young defenseman for a few games anyway.
Elliotte Friedman wonders if Mattias Norlinder might be called up by the Habs from Laval with Kaiden Guhle out “for a little while.”
— /r/Habs (@HabsOnReddit) October 18, 2023
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We will have to wait for official word from the team tomorrow morning, but expect Guhle to miss the Canadiens game on Saturday night against the Washington Capitals.
While having Guhle miss any time would not be great, the fact Friedman uses the term “a little while” suggests it is not anything too serious. Something like a broken wrist could take two months to recover from and the verbiage Friedman uses suggests a shorter timeline.
Hopefully Guhle is not out long term. After missing 38 games in his rookie season, the 21 year old needs to play as much as possible to continue developing his game. He has the potential to become a dominant two-way defender, but won’t reach his potential from the press box.
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