Montreal Canadiens’ Price a Difference-maker, But Not How You Think

Much has been said about Carey Price and the Montreal Canadiens’ miracle run. But, as much as some people would like to say, the Habs’ playoff success is not entirely based on Price’s heroics.

Price has been good, but he hasn’t frequently needed to be great. He has been the usual calm, cool and collected goalie that makes saves with ease. But that has been due to Montreal’s stellar defense.

Shea Weber, Ben Chiarot, Joel Edmundson and Jeff Petry have been excellent at shutting down opponent offences in the neutral zone and not letting opposing forwards get anything easy. Price makes the saves look easy, but that is because, a lot of the time, they are easy.

The Different Types of Offensive Styles

Toronto and Winnipeg both are similar because they love to take the puck on their sticks through the neutral zone. It is tough, and takes a lot of skill to pull off, but can yield great results. And Toronto and Winnipeg have the skilled forwards to do it, Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Scheifele, Wheeler, Connor.

If the defense is sturdy and skilled, one way to stop that is to just stand up at the blue line. If you give them no space, there is nowhere for those skilled guys to go. But this only works if you are certain that the other team will not dump in the puck. If the puck is dumped in, defenses can be caught up ice and not be able to turn in time to catch the speedier forwards and a scoring chance is created.

You cannot believe that the Vegas Golden Knights will try to carry the puck into the offensive zone every time. They have some of the skilled guys to do it, but they also have the big guys that can dump and chase the puck and grind out chances in behind the net and along the boards.

But there is a way to counter the dump and chase, and it just so happens that Montreal has the best insurance policy.

Carey Price the Stick Handler

Everyone knows that Price is an elite puck stopper when he is on. And he is usually on in the playoffs, and right now he is. This year he has a 2.15 Goals Against Average and .929 Save Percentage. That puts him right neck-and-neck with Vegas’ Marc-Andre Fleury, who has a 1.84 Goals Against Average and .927 Save Percentage (bolstered by that Game 1 win over the Canadiens).

But what Price has over other goalies is that he has an elite ability to move the puck off of his stick. He is one of the best goalies at not only stopping the puck behind the net, but also making a great play once he has full control of it.

It is a nightmare when opposing teams are looking to dump-and-chase or cycle the puck. It is like Montreal always has a third defenceman on the ice that is ready to receive any pucks behind the net. And with that ability comes confidence, and Price is not scared of coming out of his net to stop the cycle or bat down a hard dump in. It makes it that much harder for teams to establish offensive zone entries and zone time.

Price is fantastic at making those short, perfect passes that are low risk, but safe. Puck handling as a goaltender is not so much about making offence, but stopping the opponents from establishing offensive pressure. If Montreal is going to survive Vegas’ potent offence, Price will have to not only be elite in stopping pucks, but be his elite self at moving the puck and stopping the cycle.