Kaiden Guhle hasn’t gotten back to his old self (and yesterday’s game is proof of that)

Charles-Alexis Brisebois
Kaiden Guhle hasn’t gotten back to his old self (and yesterday’s game is proof of that)
Credit: Getty Images

Coming back from injury in the NHL is not easy.

We're seeing that in Montreal with Kaiden Guhle: he struggles at times. Even though Martin St-Louis tries to limit his playing time, sometimes things happen too fast for him.

Yesterday was a good example of that.

We can all agree that the game between the Wild and the Canadiens wasn't a Picasso in terms of defensive play on either side. But Guhle (who has had his ups and downs since his return) looked particularly bad on several occasions.

What was he doing on the first goal? Who knows.

Even on the Wild's second goal, he let an opponent slip behind the net. And when the play came back in front of Jakub Dobes' net, Guhle couldn't stop the Wild.

The #97 on the other side didn't need to be asked twice.

And even in overtime, Guhle fell on the ice on his own while shorthanded, seconds before the goal that gave the Wild the win.

Combine that with his partner Mike Matheson's poor play on the home team's third goal, and it was a pretty ordinary night for the habs duo.

As I said, it wasn't pretty on either side. But let's just say that the Guhle-Matheson duo made the difference for all the wrong reasons last night.

It's not the end of the world, considering that the guys normally play better, that the Wild have a lot of firepower, and that the club was playing with only five defensemen (Arber Xhekaj played less than six minutes yesterday)… but it's worth noting.

Yesterday, the Canadiens didn't really play well. They were disorganized defensively, they didn't shoot much (20 shots on goal), and they can consider themselves lucky to have taken the game into overtime.

But even in overtime, we didn't see the Canadiens we're used to seeing. The club was disorganized, changes weren't made on time… and not everything can be blamed on the referees.

Even though there were some positives yesterday (Brendan Gallagher's superb goal, Lane Hutson's pass to Ivan Demidov, Kirby Dach's performance, etc.) in Minnesota, the Canadiens didn't deserve to take home two points.

At least they got one.


Overtime

If we want to look on the bright side, the Canadiens have still managed to pick up three out of four points against two big clubs since Saturday.

That's a good thing.

Today, the Canadiens will head to Winnipeg for tomorrow night's game. It will be the club's last game before the Olympic break.

After that, the guys will either head to Italy or head on vacation.It remains to be seen whether the vacation will begin with 70, 71, or 72 points in the standings…

(Credit: NHL.com)
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