The Montreal Canadiens sent a few shockwaves through the hockey world on Sunday when they chose not to protect Carey Price in the expansion draft.
That bit of news was quickly followed by a deluge of injury rumours and specialist visits and concern for his ability to play long term. His medical records were handed over to the Seattle Kraken, their general manager Ron Francis and his team.
However, it sounds like, in the end, Carey Price will stay in Montreal.
The rumour that the Kraken would build their team around Price, from the west coast of Canada and whose wife is from the Tri-City area where Price played Junior hockey which is just a couple hours drive from Seattle is ultimately proving to not be true. There would have been a myriad of reasons for wanted Price in net, but the Kraken obviously decided his $10.5 million cap hit for the next five seasons is simply too much to handle.
The news was broken by Frank Seravalli of Daily Face-off.
BREAKING: Sources tell @DFOHockey the #SeaKraken have NOT selected Carey Price from Montreal in the Expansion Draft.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) July 21, 2021
The #Habs keep their goaltending duo in-tact, but are likely to lose defenseman Cale Fleury.
Marc Bergevin took a huge gamble, protecting Jake Allen over Price and hoping that the uncertainty around Price’s injury status would scare off the Kraken. Apparently, that gamble is about to pay off.
Price has had his rough patches in the past few regular seasons but has proven to still be among the league’s best in the past two postseasons.
The announcement’s won’t be made official until later tonight, but Frank Seravalli is going to have leaked every bit of information before you finish your lunch so you may as well check out his twitter feed instead of staying up late tonight to see who is picked by the Kraken.
Also, Seravalli mentions it is likely that Cale Fleury will be taken from the Canadiens. While he didn’t play any games with the Habs this season, he is a young, rugged defenceman who the team was likely going to pencil into the lineup as a third pairing guy next season.
With Shea Weber also out, that puts a big dent in the team’s right defence. That will be an area the team looks to upgrade this offseason.