The Montreal Canadiens will be one man short when they host the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night at the Bell Centre.
Defenceman Kaiden Guhle has been suspended by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for one game following an incident that took place on Thursday versus the Philadelphia Flyers. Montreal emerged with a morale-boosting 4-1 win, but they lost one of their best defencemen in the process.
It wasn’t a violent act per se, but Guhle still reached over the boards to slash Flyers forward Travis Konecny, who was engaged in a board battle with Juraj Slafkovsky. The play consisted of interference from the bench, a clear violation of the rules.
The game itself was quite heated, and Konecny had been poking the hornet’s nest all night long with questionable plays, but Guhle knows better than to break such a clear rule. There was no penalty during the game, as the officials (and almost everyone else) missed the slash.
Guhle took a few big hits during the game, which certainly added some fuel to the fire prior to the incident. We can chalk this up to a learning moment for Guhle. He’s not a dirty player, and Habs fans will surely argue there was little to no damage made by the slash, but that matters very little in the grand scheme of things.
While it may be an understandable situation, the context does not excuse the play. It’s a cut-and-dry decision by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety.
Guhle, 22, is one of the busiest players in the lineup, which means head coach Martin St-Louis will have to increase the ice time allotted to the rest of the pairings. Expect Montreal Canadiens defenceman Johnathan Kovacevic to enter the lineup on Saturday versus the Hurricanes to help fill the massive gap left by Guhle’s absence.
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