Canadiens’ Kaiden Guhle to miss 4-5 weeks after undergoing surgery
The Montreal Canadiens announced on Wednesday that defenseman Kaiden Guhle will miss four to five weeks as he recovers from surgery to address an issue with an adductor muscle over the summer.
A first-round pick at No. 16 overall in the 2020 NHL Draft, Guhle is entering his fifth NHL season after a 2025-26 campaign that saw him post 11 points while being limited to 39 games during the regular season as he dealt with an adductor muscle injury that cost him the entirety of the months of November and December last year.
When Guhle returned, he was a fixture on Montreal’s blue line for the rest of the season and throughout the team’s run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which saw them fall in a five-game series at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final after knocking off their Atlantic Division rivals Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres in the first two rounds. The 24-year-old from Sherwood Park, Alberta had 8 points (all assists) in 19 postseason appearances.
The news means that Guhle will likely miss all of training camp and the preseason, as well as the first two to three weeks of the upcoming regular season. Guhle is currently projected to skate alongside Alexandre Carrier on the Habs’ third defensive pairing.
With Guhle sidelined, the opportunity to start the year in a full-time role could go to Arber Xhekaj, who on Tuesday signed a one-year contract for this season with a salary cap hit of $1.5 million.
With its impressive young core led by Nick Suzuki, Lane Hutson, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov, Montreal is widely expected to contend for first-place in a loaded Atlantic Division. Expectations are sky-high for the Canadiens after the group arrived in the East Final a bit ahead of schedule last season and proved it could knock some heavyweights out of the postseason in the spring.
Montreal will get its new season started on Opening Night on Sept. 29 with a visit to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
