TAMPA, Fla. — There was an important milestone that got a lot of attention Saturday morning as Juraj Slafkovský prepared to play his 100th game in a Montreal Canadiens uniform, all before his 20th birthday. He was asked about how he has adjusted to playing in the NHL, how comfortable he feels living in Montreal, far from home, how much he feels he’s improved since entering the league last season and how much he hopes to improve over his next 100 games.
“I hope I can improve a lot,” Slafkovský said. “I feel I already improved a lot during these first 100 games. Just want to keep building my game so that when it’s another 100, I’ll be a different player.”
Meanwhile, two nights earlier in South Florida, Canadiens defenceman Kaiden Guhle also played his 100th NHL game, and answered no such questions. Barely anyone even really noticed.
Perhaps that’s because Guhle is already playing like someone who has been in the NHL for 500 games, not just 100, and we got another example of that near the end of game No. 101 for Guhle.
Bon match à tous! (et bon 100e match dans la LNH à Slaf 🎉)
Coming up: Slaf’s 100th NHL game#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/Yx1fbbqqhY
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) March 3, 2024
The Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning were tied 3-3 with less than two minutes left to play in regulation Saturday when Nikita Kucherov — only the NHL’s leading scorer — got the puck in the Canadiens’ end with time and space on the right side of the ice. The only thing standing between him and Canadiens goaltender Cayden Primeau was Guhle.
“At first,” Guhle said, “you’re kind of like, ‘Oh s—.’”
But behind the Canadiens bench, watching that situation develop, coach Martin St. Louis did not share his young defenceman’s initial reaction.
“I wasn’t really worried,” St. Louis said, “just because I feel (Guhle) has shown time and time again that he can do the job against some of those top players in the league.”
Once Guhle’s initial dread subsided, he began to read the situation. Going one-on-one against Kucherov in that situation seemed far less daunting once he determined what his priorities were and what he needed to prevent Kucherov from doing.
“He was pretty wide, and at that point it’s just to keep him to the outside,” Guhle said. “He was on his off side, so if he tries to come into the middle, he’s on his forehand and he’s pretty lethal when he’s cutting to the middle. So, basically, keep him to the outside. I was kind of lucky (Mike Matheson) was there to save it when (Kucherov) went around the net. But again, 90 seconds left in the game, one-on-one against the leading scorer in the league, that’s fun.
“Those are fun things to get to do.”
Kucherov tried to spin around Guhle to get to the Canadiens’ net, but the angle Guhle left him meant Kucherov spun right into the side of the net, and not in front. Yes, Kucherov’s attempt to go around the net was met by Matheson, but that initial play on Kucherov’s initial move required poise and defensive awareness, attributes that are uncommon in most defencemen playing the 101st game of their NHL career.
It didn’t hurt that Guhle saw Kucherov practically all night. Of Kucherov’s 18:21 of five-on-five ice time, 12:31 of it came against Guhle, including a rather rude encounter very early in the game that led to Guhle setting up Joel Armia for the opening goal.
“That was just a weird play. He just blew a tire, and I was right there to sit on him,” Guhle said. “When I got up and looked up, it was a two-on-one, so I didn’t have to read much.”
très 𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗮ble de ta part
love an early lead#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/Zzf6jvmfrJ
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) March 3, 2024
Another sign of just how trusted Guhle is at this early stage of his career is how St. Louis hedged being on the road against the Lightning. Whenever St. Louis wanted to get some minutes for his fourth line of Colin White, Tanner Pearson and Jesse Ylönen, he tried as often as possible to make sure Guhle and Matheson were behind them, because he knew his Lightning counterpart Jon Cooper would be coming with Kucherov, Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos more often than not.
And St. Louis was fine with it.
“We made sure we had that,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get the matchup up front that I wanted. But we made sure Matty and (Guhle) were out there.
“At the end of the day, everybody’s got to play on the road, everybody’s got to do the job, everybody’s got to be aware when those guys are on the ice. But I felt comfortable with Matty and (Guhle) behind them.”
And Guhle loved every second of it.
“Those are the situations you want to be in,” he said. “It’s fun playing against those guys. I feel like I’m learning so much playing against those guys. Just my defensive game, I feel like it’s coming along. Definitely not perfect, and still a lot of things I’ve got to work on, but playing against those guys there’s so much you learn about playing against those types of players and what you have to do to defend them.”
But Guhle doesn’t only learn on the ice. He’s learning off the ice as well, and even at home, where he pours over game video in his free time.
“I’ve started watching my games a lot more and in a lot more detail and getting pointers from the coaching staff,” Guhle said. “I think stick details is something I had to work on from last year. I think, at times, I was definitely a little too aggressive with my stick and that’s something you get away with in junior because (your opponents) don’t have as good of hands and as good of vision at that point. That was the biggest thing for me, just the stick detail. You really don’t need to do too much with your stick, you kind of just need to keep it there and let them make the first move and go from there.”
That’s exactly what he did in that late-game, high-leverage situation with Kucherov, let him make the first move. That takes poise, something Guhle has demonstrated from his first game, when he began his NHL career facing Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner and the Toronto Maple Leafs. But back then, Guhle admitted to being a little star-struck when he was on the ice against some of the best players in the world.
“I do catch myself sometimes watching a bit,” Guhle said back then. “I have to try not to be in awe.”
Guhle has not been in awe in a very long time. He continues facing difficult matchups as he has basically his entire NHL career without batting an eye.
And perhaps that is why Guhle’s improvement over his first 100 games went a bit unnoticed, while Slafkovský’s has been so striking. Because while Slafkovský had to go through serious lows before reaching major highs — he registered 16 points from game 80 to 100 after registering 25 points over his first 80 games — Guhle never went through those lows. He’s been given massive challenges his entire career and met just about every one with understated, mature play, just as he did Saturday night against three of the most dangerous players in the NHL.
As the Canadiens look to the future, Slafkovský is obviously a focal point along with his linemates Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. Cooper matched his shutdown line centered by Anthony Cirelli hard against Suzuki’s line all night, a sign of respect that Cooper acknowledged before the game.
“They’re a really good line,” Cooper said Saturday morning. “Suzuki’s an outstanding player, Caufield’s…got a gift that most people don’t. They’re good. That’s a line that when Montreal comes in, you’ve got to circle and say if you want to have a chance to win, we’ve got to contain those guys.”
St. Louis had the same thought about Kucherov, Point and Stamkos. And while Matheson deserves a lot of credit for what he did against them Saturday night, the fact Guhle was the other player given that difficult task just after crossing the 100-game threshold says just as much about the Canadiens’ future as the performance of their top forward line does.
(Photo of Joel Armia and Kaiden Guhle: Mike Carlson / NHLI via Getty Images)
