Guhle deal part of a longer-term trend across the NHL

After 114 games in Montreal, the Canadiens front office has seen enough from defenceman Kaiden Guhle. The team committed to a six-year, $33-million dollar contract with the 21-year-old blueliner on Wednesday morning.

Montreal’s decision to extend Guhle on a long-term deal amidst a very limited track record is part of a longer-term trend we have seen across the league, with front offices more willing than ever before to bet big – and bet early – on promising young defenders.

There is inherent risk in signing players with such limited track records, to say nothing of the volatility we see in player development cycles. But there is considerable payoff if teams can identify significant talent early in their career.

Guhle’s contract may appear a bit expensive on paper, for now. But if Guhle is able to build on promising early-career results, you suddenly have a top-four (or first-pairing) defenceman carrying a cap hit of $5.5-millon per year. That’s a steep discount relative to the market.

What’s alluring about Guhle’s game to Montreal is obvious watching his tape: he looks the part of a modern-era defender, a high-end skater willing to jump into the rush, but just as comfortable playing off the puck within defensive structure. His tape is full of sequences where he uses his skating ability and reasonably large frame to dispossess attackers, and Montreal saw meaningful defensive performance improvements with him on the ice.

Yes, Canadiens goaltenders struggled in stretches last year – in Guhle’s case, Montreal netminders stopped just 89 per cent of shots, which tends to be more typical with teams amidst deep rebuilds. What’s notable is how expected goal rates (shot volumes adjusted for quality, based on historical goal scoring probabilities) moved with and without Guhle.

If we trend last season, consider what Montreal looked like defensively with and without Guhle deployed:

Yost 1

Over long periods of time, quality offensive defencemen drive goal-scoring rates to the upside; quality defensive defencemen drive goal-scoring against rates to the downside. But in any given season, especially a season where expectations were quite low, those numbers can be hard to come by – even for elite players.

I always pause here to remind skeptics what Erik Karlsson looked like in the early stages of his career, and then again what he looked like when the Ottawa Senators put some talent (notably forward talent) around him. The results skyrocketed. Karlsson may be a unicorn, but the principle remains the same: individuals are always capable of outperforming their environment, but only to a degree.

That’s why I find the expected goal numbers with Guhle on the ice encouraging. Take the shoddy goaltending out of the equation, and his on-ice impact looks much better.

I’m not alone in that line of thinking. Most statistical models capable of isolating a player’s individual contributions were impressed with his play last season. As one example, Evolving Hockey’s Goals Above Replacement model had Guhle more than six goals better than the typical replacement-level defender. That’s a solid season for any player, but what makes it alluring is the fact he did it in his age-21 campaign.

To that end, consider some recent comparables for Guhle – age-21 defenders who contributed around six goals of replacement-level value, and how those defenders progressed through their careers. I think this is what Montreal is ultimately betting on:

Yost 2

What stands out to me is how the vast majority of these skaters went on to have many productive years after an initial breakout. Three of the 16 skaters (Xavier Ouellet, Michael Del Zotto, and Steven Kampfer) would show your downside risk – guys who had a tempting breakout year, but ultimately just became depth third-pairing options. If that’s the direction for Guhle, the extension will be an overpayment.

But look at the upside. This list is teeming with reasonable second-pairing comparisons and even a few stars – Chris Tanev, Mikhail Sergachev, Jared Spurgeon, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson – immediately jump off the page. That’s massive upside.

There is always risk when extending young players on term, but the payoff can be significant. In the case of Habs general manager Kent Hughes, I think he sees a bet that’s much more likely to pay off than not, and the calculus to earmark Guhle as part of the long-term core in Montreal seems quite reasonable.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference