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Kaiden Guhle’s contract: this lays the groundwork for Mike Matheson’s contract in 2026

 Andrew Taylor
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Kaiden Guhle’s contract: this lays the groundwork for Mike Matheson’s contract in 2026
Credit: Getty Images
Kaiden Guhle will earn $5.55 million per year from 2025 to 2031. This was announced this morning by the Habs.

This means that the Canadiens now have four contracts in effect after the 2027 season. Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Kaiden Guhle are the lucky ones.

Let’s hear it for the youngsters!

We’ve often talked about the famous “salary hierarchy” at forward. Marc Bergevin gave Nick Suzuki $7.75 million a year, and Kent Hughes managed to give Cole Caufield ($7.85 million) and Juraj Slafkovsky ($7.6 million) two eight-year contracts under that figure recently.

But now, signing Guhle represents the first step towards the same thing, but on defense. The defenseman who wants to earn more money than Guhle will have to be better than him. #Logic

We’re thinking of the youngsters coming up for that statement (by the time Lane Hutson, David Reinbacher and Logan Mailloux are ready to go to the bank, the salary cap will have gone up, no less)… but why look so far ahead?

In 11 months, Mike Matheson will be eligible to sign a contract extension. And in 23 months, he’ll be a free agent without compensation.

Right now, he’s the highest-paid defenseman on the Habs. He earns $4.875 million per season for two more years… which means that by 2025-2026, he will theoretically be the Habs’ second-highest-paid defenseman.

But will he be in a position to demand more than Guhle? After all, he does things that Guhle doesn’t…

In 2023-2024, Matheson was one of the NHL’s most productive defensemen. He was the Habs’ most-used defenseman (often three to four minutes more per game than Kaiden Guhle), and he played in tough situations.

He skates well, he’s from Quebec and he represents the Habs well to the club’s youth and in the community.

His next potential contract, which comes into effect in two years’ time when the cap has gone up, will be as a 100% unrestricted free agent. In Guhle’s case, four of the six years of his contract are WITH restricted free agent years that have been purchased.

It doesn’t have the same value. Negotiating on the unrestricted free-agent market drives up prices.

Logically, everything points to Matheson earning more than $5.55 million a year on his next contract. If he keeps up the pace, there’s no reason to believe that such an increase is impossible in his case.

There are, however, two nuances to consider. Matheson will be 32 in the summer of 2026, which means he won’t be signing for six years or more… and that doesn’t mean he’ll be signing his contract with the Habs.

If Kent Hughes decides in due course that paying him six, seven or eight million dollars a year doesn’t fit in with the process the Habs are going through, the veteran could leave.

But that’s another debate… and I’m sure Kent Hughes was thinking about it long before I penned these few lines. He must have a preliminary plan in mind regarding his former client.


Overtime

– Nice summer.

– Sick.

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