If he had to redo the 2020 draft, Mathias Brunet would select Kaiden Guhle at No. 3

It’s a cliché, but the NHL draft is far from an exact science.

Teams make their decisions after conducting thousands of searches, but sometimes the picks they make don’t live up to expectations.

It happens.

While there’s always uncertainty, there were so many positive comments when the Habs selected Kaiden Guhle 16th overall in the 2020 draft.

The pundits and panelists were saying at the time that the CH had managed to get their hands on a shutdown D who’s going to have a nice, long NHL career…

And what we’ve seen of the defender since his debut in Montreal when he’s healthy leads us to believe that he’s destined for a bright future.

Guhle is good – very good, in fact – and is establishing himself as an important defenseman for the Montreal Canadiens. He has the qualities of a top-4 defenseman, and it’s his calmness and consistency that impress night after night.

The Canadiens’ defenseman is so good in Mathias Brunet’s eyes that the journalist would have chosen him with the 3rd overall pick in 2020 :

I’d put Kaiden Guhle 3rd. – Mathias Brunet

Mathias Brunet, who was on BPM Sports for his column of the day, defends his point by saying that centers and defensemen are more important than wingers for an NHL club.

He would therefore put Tim Stutzle in 1st place, and Jake Sanderson in 2nd :

If the 2020 draft were to be redone, @mathiasbrunet would take Kaiden Guhle ahead of, among others, Quinton Byfield, Lucas Raymond, Alexis Lafrenière and Cole Perfetti. What do you think?

Don’t miss his full column with @MartinLemay.https://t.co/R5h7YfKZkh pic.twitter.com/JwnPnFys65

– BPM Sports (@BPMSportsRadio) December 8, 2023

This means that Mathias Brunet would take Guhle before Byfield, Raymond, Lafrenière and Perfetti, who all play on the wing.

But still!

I agree with Raymond, Lafrenière and Perfetti… But not Byfield. At least, I would have chosen Byfield over Guhle at the time, because the Habs were still looking for their big left-handed forward.

But since the start of the season, Guhle has shown that his game has progressed and that he has what it takes to become the pillar of the Habs’ blue line. In fact, he is one of the few Tricolore players with a positive differential this year (+2), demonstrating his reliability on the ice.

After all, he’s the second most-used player by Martin St-Louis since the start of the campaign, behind Mike Matheson…

And there’s every reason to believe that the youngster will snatch the team’s #1 defenseman position from the older man’s hands before long, if he hasn’t already.

In brief

– It looks a lot like this.

– He’s struggling this season.

– He’s no Shohei Ohtani, but hey.