Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price has battled his fair share of injuries over his career.
Most recently, he was knocked out of the lineup with a concussion suffered against the Edmonton Oilers on April 19th, which is now 11 days ago. This was his second injury in rapid succession as this was just his second game back after missing 12 days with a lower body injury.
The concussion, we were told, was minor and would require Price miss “about a week.”
Well, it’s been 11 days, which is approaching two weeks now and he has just returned to “off-ice duties.” This was confirmed by head coach Dominique Ducharme, who said that if everything continues to go well, Price will be back on the ice in the next few days. Well, that means he will be back to practice in the next few days, and then will probably take a few more days to get ready for game action.
#Habs Ducharme said Price’s most recent concussion test results were encouraging. Price resumed off-ice exercise today and Ducharme said if his recovery continues to track upward, Price might be back on the ice in the next few days. @TSN_Edge
— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNWpg) April 29, 2021
Price getting back to practice fairly soon before taking a few more days to get into game shape is now the best case scenario.
What happened to the “one week” timeframe?
There has been such a shroud of mystery around Price’s injuries over the years, that this is starting to sound quite concerning. A few years back, Price started a season 10-0-0 before stepping on a puck in warm-up in Alberta. He was supposed to be out day to day but he missed the rest of the season as we watched Ben Scrivens and Mike Condon throw away a secure playoff spot.
Jake Allen is certainly doing his best to keep the Habs in a playoff spot, but if this team is going to do any damage in the postseason, it needs Carey Price at the top of his game.
Hopefully, he does return to the ice in the next few days, but we really won’t know for sure what his status is until we see him in a full practice or a game. The Habs have covered up his actual injuries before, let’s hope it isn’t happening again.