Guhle's Surgery Is the First Test of Montreal's Rebuilt Blue Line

Kaiden Guhle had adductor surgery on Tuesday and is out four to five weeks, which puts him well into the early regular season. The timing is lousy — training camp opens with the Canadiens already short a defenseman who logged meaningful minutes last year.

The front office spent the summer addressing exactly this kind of vulnerability. Arber Xhekaj was signed to a one-year deal just the day before the injury news landed. Maksymilian Szuber came aboard in August on a two-way contract as a depth option. The pieces are there, at least on paper — the offseason was built with the understanding that a young blue line needs bodies behind it.

What it didn't account for was losing one of those bodies before a game is played. Mike Matheson and Noah Dobson anchor the top pairings, and Lane Hutson — 49 points in his rookie season — gives the group an elite offensive option from the back end. Below that tier, the margin gets thin fast, and Guhle's absence is precisely where thin margins show up first.

Four to five weeks is not a season-ending situation. If the timeline holds, Guhle is back sometime in October, and the damage is containable. But the Canadiens spent the offseason building depth so they wouldn't have to find out how shallow the third pairing really is. They're about to find out anyway.