BUFFALO, N.Y. – Crazy.
How else to explain the circumstances that saw teenager Brendan Guhle plucked directly from a morning skate in the Western Hockey League and thrown into a game against his boyhood NHL team a few days later?
Guhle grew up in the Edmonton suburb of Sherwood Park and still fondly recalls the details of the Oilers run to the 2006 Stanley Cup Final. He was a kid then and watched closely with his father Mark.
“It was like (Fernando) Pisani was scoring every game,” he says with a smile.
About the last place he expected to find himself on Tuesday morning was sitting in the Buffalo Sabres dressing room while coach Dan Bylsma ran through a game plan to have success against Edmonton.
Guhle was stunned last Friday when word arrived that the Sabres were calling him up from Prince George on an emergency basis. The NHL team had endured an unfortunate string of injuries on the blue-line – four defencemen are currently out – and decided to press its top defensive prospect into action.
The 19-year-old made his NHL debut against Boston on Saturday afternoon and was back in the lineup for Monday’s game in Washington. As luck would have it, the Oilers were next up for Buffalo with their only visit to KeyBank Center this season coming on Tuesday.
“It’s pretty crazy that I’m going to be playing against them tonight,” said Guhle. “I didn’t even realize that Edmonton was coming here until yesterday when I looked at the schedule. I didn’t know if I would still be here, or how long I’ll be here, but when I figured out that I was playing them I was pretty excited.”
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The 2015 second-round pick is living day to day right now. He has no choice.
The terms of the NHL-CHL agreement mandate that he’ll need to be returned to the Cougars as soon as Buffalo’s injury picture clears up. That means the length of his stay will be determined by how fast injuries to Dmitry Kulikov (back), Zach Bogosian (knee), Josh Gorges (foot) and Taylor Fedun (shoulder) heal up.
Guhle understands he’s on borrowed time and initially feared he might be sent back to the WHL just prior to facing Edmonton.
“I had a good feeling this morning after they didn’t tell me anything last night,” he said.
Guhle had a strong showing at Sabres training camp the past two years and very nearly made the team in the fall. His biggest asset is his skating ability, which has transferred seamlessly from junior to the NHL. Bylsma noticed it most in the offensive zone in the game against the Bruins and thought it helped Guhle snuff out a couple of Alex Ovechkin rush opportunities in Washington.
“It was two tall tasks for him,” said Bylsma. “He’s done a good job of stepping in and showing he can play.”
Should he find himself on the ice with Oilers captain Connor McDavid at some point on Tuesday, it isn’t likely to faze Guhle. They played against one another at the Top Prospects Game in 2015, and the Sabres defenceman feels like he knows what to expect.
“I think I can skate with him,” he said.
The idea of facing the Oilers seemed to bring out a little more disbelief.
As a kid, Guhle’s favourite players were Chris Pronger, Sheldon Souray and Ales Hemsky, and he remembers coming home from a game with the Sherwood Park Flyers a couple years ago when Edmonton forward Sam Gagner had eight points against Chicago.
“We had just finished playing South Side (Athletic Club) and I was in bantam and we were listening to the radio on the way home,” said Guhle. “And it was like Gagner had his sixth point or something. I was like ‘What? This is crazy.’
“We got home to watch the third period and he had a couple more.”
Guhle hasn’t received any indication from the Sabres about what kind of timeframe he’s looking at before heading back to junior. With the uncertainty of injuries, he’s not even sure there’s much of a plan in place.
“I have no idea,” said Guhle. “I’m just going to play one game at a time. Yesterday I wasn’t even sure if I would be playing today.”
Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
