Montreal Canadiens Risked Season By Not Pulling Carey Price vs Arizona Coyotes

The Montreal Canadiens have relied heavily on Carey Price over the past few years. They are counting on him again to lead them to the playoffs, but they risked losing him long term by leaving him in to play against the Arizona Coyotes.

The Montreal Canadiens are counting on Carey Price to lead them to the postseason. They have been leaning heavily on their star goaltender for most of the last decade. Sometimes, he seemed to be the only reason the Habs weren’t at the bottom of the standings when they were winning division titles.

There is a reason he is the highest paid goaltender in the league. Price signed an eight year contract extension worth $10.5 million per year. He is currently in the second season of that enormous contract, meaning he will be well compensated for the next six seasons.

The Canadiens need to walk a fine line when dealing with an asset like Price. On the one hand, since he is making so much money, you want him playing as often as possible. On the other hand, you don’t want him to get worn out or go down to a nagging injury because he has been overworked.

More from Editorials

• Montreal Canadiens: Senators Rebuild At Crisis Point As Kent Hughes Moves Forward
• Montreal Canadiens: Jonathan Drouin Continues Charity Work In Montreal After Leaving Habs
• Montreal Canadiens: Laval Rocket Lineup Going To Be Must Watch
• Montreal Canadiens: Jesse Ylönen Contract Extension Analysis
• Montreal Canadiens: Top 31 Prospects – #31 Quentin Miller

The Habs faced such a dilemma on Wednesday night when the Canadiens were playing the Arizona Coyotes. With 6:46 to play in the second period, and the Habs leading 2-0, Coyotes center Derek Stepan cut to the net but was taken down by Shea Weber. As Stepan fell, his leg helicoptered around and clipped Price hard in the side of the head.

Price didn’t collapse to the ice, but he immediately dropped his head down and reached for it with both of his hands. Seconds later he got up and skated toward the corner where Stepan and one of the referees were. Price seemed to be wobbly on his skates for a second and almost lost his balance and fell to the ice.

It was pretty clear that Price was feeling the effects of being kicked in the head. However, the Canadiens elected to leave him in the game. They were even contacted by a concussion spotter to “make them aware” that Price was contacted in the head and appeared uneasy on his skates.

The oddest part of this whole situation is that there is a neutral site concussion spotter whose job it is to “make teams aware” of these situations. They did not tell the Habs they needed to pull Price from the game to go through concussion protocol, they left it up to the team to decide what to do.

The Canadiens decided it was not worth pulling Price from a regular season road game in October to see if he was suffering the effects of a brain injury. That is extraordinarily short-sighted and could have had catastrophic consequences.

What is Price was hit in the head again later in the second period? He could be out of the lineup for a month with a concussion. We have seen in the past what happens with this team when Price is out long term. In 2015-16, Price missed most of the season and the Canadiens missed the playoffs by a wide margin. Price was limited to 49 games in 2017-18 and the Habs dropped to the fourth worst record in the league.

The Habs need to protect their most expensive asset at all costs. As soon as Price was hit in the head, he should have been removed as a precaution and gone through the concussion protocol. Neglecting to care for such an important player could have resulted in a long-term injury to Price.

The Canadiens are going to be in a battle for the postseason all year long. They still need to keep their long term outlook in mind when a player has a potential brain injury. Losing Carey Price for 26 minutes against a western conference team in October is trivial compared to the effect of having him sidelined indefinitely with a concussion.