This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Kaiden Guhle
Montreal Canadiens Defense
55 games at 21:11 a night, and a shutdown defenceman who cannot stay on the ice.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | MTL | 44 | 4 | 14 | 18 | -19 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 8.3 | 20:31 |
| 2023-24 | MTL | 70 | 6 | 16 | 22 | -8 | 56 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 95 | 6.3 | 20:51 |
| 2024-25 | MTL | 55 | 6 | 12 | 18 | +6 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 71 | 8.5 | 21:11 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 169 | 16 | 42 | 58 | -21 | 130 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 214 | 7.5 | 20:52 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
6 goals and 12 assists in 55 games for 18 points, plus-6, on 21:11 a night.
48.7 per cent at five-on-five, the 38th percentile, over 941 minutes. 74 per cent of his shots came from beyond 40 feet and 3 per cent from inside 20. 55 games is the third consecutive season interrupted by injury.
The Finesse Game
Modest and appropriate. 71 shots and 6 goals, and 12 assists in 55 games at 21 minutes a night is a low return.
The first pass is quick and safe and he does not stall a breakout. There is no offensive projection and none required.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 202, and he defends properly. He closes a rush at the blue line, clears his crease, and is genuinely difficult to get around — the tools for a shutdown defenceman are all here.
47 penalty minutes over 55 games is a high rate. The availability is the problem: he has not cleared 65 games in three NHL seasons.
The Intangibles
A first-round pick, a junior captain, and a defenceman the club needs to be its defensive conscience on a blue line whose two best players are offensive.
At 23 the projection is a genuine top-four shutdown defenceman. The body has to hold up first and it has not yet.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 941 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.7%
- 38th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47%
- 24th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 43 for, 36 against. Expected: 38.4 and 40.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 26 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 75 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 941 minutes at five-on-five
- Lane Hutson21%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2024-25
- The club
- MTL took 48.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.7% — 0.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 941 minutes at five-on-five — 52nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexandre Carrier | 52.9% | 46.6% | 43.4% |
| Nick Suzuki | 44.1% | 50.8% | 50.3% |
| Cole Caufield | 44.1% | 50.8% | 49.4% |
52.9% together, 46.6% for him apart and 43.4% for Carrier apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
115 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 47 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 74% from beyond forty.