Montreal Canadiens “Overpriced and Declining” Veterans Earning Their Big Paydays
The Montreal Canadiens have locked up a significant portion of their cap space in Shea Weber and Carey Price. The two veterans are leading the Habs early in the season.
The Montreal Canadiens have taken a lot of criticism for spending too much money on aging players. There is no question the team is spending a lot of their cap space on Carey Price and Shea Weber. Fans of other teams, and even some of those who cheer for Montreal, are quick to point out they are spending way too much on these “declining and aging” assets.
Price is in the second year of an eight year deal that has him earning $10.5 million per season. Weber is in year eight of a 14 year contract that pays him $7,857,143 per season. That is more than $18 million dollars, or 22.5% of the current salary cap. Price turned 32 years old this summer just two days after Weber celebrated his 34th birthday.
That is a lot of money for two guys on the wrong side of 30. Each of them are signed for six more seasons after this one. There almost certainly will be years in the future when their $18,357,143 combined salary cap hit will be difficult to swallow.
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That time hasn’t come yet. During the first two weeks of the season, it looked like the two veterans had lost a step, but they have come on strong in the past two weeks to make this Montreal Canadiens team look like a playoff contender once again.
Weber started the season playing enormous minutes. He was averaging 25:30 per night in the first three games of the season and he was not at his best. He has been partnered with Victor Mete since day one of the season, but Mete was forced to do a lot early on because Weber was struggling to keep up with the pace of the Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres.
After six games, or the first two weeks of the season, Weber had just two points, both assists, and had a plus-minus of minus 3. That’s not the greatest stat in the world, but when you are playing that many minutes, you are expected to shut down the opposition’s best players, not watch them score goals at even strength.
Weber’s ice time was brought down after the first three games of the season and it is paying off. He is still averaging 22:15 per game over the past seven but he has been far more effective while on the ice. What is interesting is his number of shifts are not coming down, but his total ice time has dropped. That means he is taking slightly shorter shifts which allows him to be better while he is on the ice.
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Over the past seven games, Weber has scored twice and has five assists for seven points. Not surprisingly, the Canadiens are 5-2-0 over those games, earning two huge wins on consecutive nights on a western road trip to close out October. It’s still early in the season, but they are currently third in the Atlantic Division, ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs.
They wouldn’t be there without the strong recent stretch from the captain. They also wouldn’t be winning as many games if it weren’t for Carey Price finding his form in goal.
Just like Weber, Price did not have fantastic statistics after the first two weeks of the season.
In his first five starts, Price had a mediocre record of 2-2-1 and the team was lucky to even win twice. Price had a goals against average of 3.33 and a save percentage of .896 at that time. He allowed at least three goals in each of those five games and was rescued by a great offence that gave the team five points in the standings in those five games.
Since then, Price has begun to earn his huge paydays. He has posted a scintillating 1.82 GAA with a fantastic .935 save percentage over his last five starts. That includes a four goal game against the San Jose Sharks, meaning Price has been phenomenal against the Minnesota Wild, St. Louis Blues, Toronto Maple Leafs and Arizona Coyotes in the past two weeks.
Once again not surprising, but the Habs have won four of those five games which has propelled them into a playoff spot. It’s early to be talking about playoff spots, but it shows the team finished October strong and are in a good place after a month of regular season action thanks to the great play over the past two weeks of Weber and Price.
It’s almost like Price and Weber got their first pay of the season two weeks in and realized they had not earned it. Immediately, they both flipped a switch and started to dominate on the ice once again.
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Price and Weber may be getting older, as is everyone on the planet. However, they are proving they are not overpaid and are not even declining at this point in their career. It took them two weeks to get into form, but the Montreal Canadiens are lucky to be led on and off the ice by Carey Price and Shea Weber.