Kaiden Guhle suffered a devestating injury on Tuesday night against the Winnipeg Jets when a self-inflicted skate laceration cut into his quad and forced him into immediate surgery. He caught an edge and fell into the boards, which caused his left leg to cut into the space where no padding resides between his right knee and thigh. The defenseman rushed off the ice and had to be helped down the tunnel by medical staff.
Guhle had four goals and 14 points in 44 games entering Tuesday's game, averaging 21:14 minutes of ice time. He has been a massive piece of the Canadiens' blue line since entering the league, and his role and effectiveness were growing with each passing game. He found some chemistry with newcomer Alexandre Carrier but was playing with Lane Hutson on Tuesday night to try and get him back on track.
Guhle's absence is a hole the Canadiens can't fill, but they'll do their best after recalling Jayden Struble on Wednesday. It is becoming a disappointing trend for Guhle as the injuries pile up early in his career. The Canadiens hope to have him around as a blueline centerpiece for a long time, and they must hope he can get past the bad injury luck.
However, the fans need to get past the narrative on social media that Guhle is a band-aid and that this incident is the one that needs to tip the scales in favor of moving on from the 23-year-old. This injury was nothing more than bad luck, and it can happen to anyone from Guhle to the average joe at beer league at 11 PM on a Monday night. The injury on Tuesday had nothing to do with being injury prone.
Does it suck that Guhle will miss another 30 games of development if he's done for the season? Yes, it does. But don't pile on and say it's because he can't stay healthy. The only thing the Canadiens should worry about is how this freak injury will affect Guhle going forward. It has been documented by Gabriel Landeskog that the knee injury that has kept him out since 2022 began when he cut his leg in the same spot as Guhle in 2020.
If Guhle suffers the same fate it would be unfortunate, but it won't be because he is injury prone. Sometimes players just have bad injury luck, and there's nothing hockey fans can do about it.