Montreal Canadiens: 5 Players Who Have to Step Up in the Playoffs

Number 1: Carey Price

Carey Price is expected to return from his concussion injury in time for the playoffs. As much as fans and pundits like to speculate that there is a goaltender crisis in Montreal, it seems like there would be only one choice for Dominique Ducharme and Marc Bergevin.

Despite how well Jake Allen has been playing all season, Price is the man for Bergevin. And to be fair to Price, he has not been bad this year. Price has played 25 games and it was the plan all along to have Price play fewer games, but a good number of those missed games have been due to injury.

Allen and Price, as much as people love to sing the praises of Allen, have had really similar numbers. The goals-against average is 2.64 for Price and 2.63 for Allen, good for 21st and 22nd in the league. Price has a .901 save percentage while Allen has .908. Price has 12 wins and Allen has 11. Price is the only one with a shutout this year.

What’s the difference? $6,150,000. Price has played well this year, but $10.5 million does not buy well. That is the same amount of money annually that Patrick Kane makes, and Kane has 66 points this year so far. The closest comparable in the goaltending realm is Sergei Bobrovsky, who makes an even $10 million a year. Price has a better goals-against average, but has a slightly lower save percentage and has 5 fewer wins in 5 fewer games.

But it is hard to say that Price is comparable to the players in his price range like Kane, Marner and Jonathan Toews. Price and Bobrovsky are only joined by Andrei Vasilevskiy ($9.5 million) as high-priced goaltenders. The next highest goalies are Marc-Andre Fleury and Tukka Rask at $7 million.

Then there are the injuries. A lower-body injury and concussion this year. Price missed three games last year due to a lower-body injury, and missed 13 games in 2018 due to a concussion. Then, of course, there was the 2015-2016 season, where Price missed 67 games with a lower-body injury and completely derailed the season for the Habs.

Outside of all of that previously mentioned, the goalies are going to be the most important players for Montreal to beat the Maple Leafs. As previously mentioned, Toronto has the best scorer in the league in Matthews and his sidekick Marner. And once you get past those two, you have to deal with the second line of William Nylander and John Tavares.

It is a near-impossible task to completely stop those four, you can only hope to slow them down. It takes the whole team, but the last line of defence and the player that is on the ice for the longest amount of time is the goaltender.

It is not out of the realm of possibility that Price can pull a miracle run out of nowhere. Just last year, Montreal snuck into the play-in rounds and came up against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Montreal beat Pittsburgh soundly, and put up a valiant fight against a Philadelphia team that played about the most boring style of hockey imaginable.

(Side Note: Across the pond in Europe and the great sport of football, or soccer, there is a name for this style of play: tiki-taka [because yes there are different styles of play in soccer, not just boring as many people think]. In fact, in my family’s country of origin, Italy, the style is so unanimous with the national team, it can be called tiki-talia. It is all about maintaining possession by any means necessary, including passing it all the way back if they do not like what they see.

Montreal has displayed a little bit of this in their overtime against the Maple Leafs, but that is only for 5 minutes against Auston Matthews, I think it can be forgiven. When done well, tiki-taka can look like a work of art, as all these deliberate passes work together to form some unforgettable plays. But it can also lead to stalling and boredom, like in Philadelphia or at times, the New York Islanders).

So, after falling to Tiki-delphia and the dust settled, Price had played 10 games, winning 5 and losing 5, with a save percentage of .936 and a goals-against average of 1.78. Quite the step above the .901 and 2.64 numbers that he has put up so far this year. And Price is going to have to return to those numbers if Montreal is going to have success, especially if the offence continues to sputter.

But, that is easier done when you have a solid defence in front to stop those high danger chances. And that leads us to number 2.