The Montreal Canadiens had a lot of turnover in the offseason and dealt with a handful of injuries in the preseason as well.
This led to a number of players missing the start of the regular season that were expected to be there at one time.
The biggest surprise among those not in uniform was Carey Price.
Price was injured at the end of the postseason and required surgery to repair his hip. As training camp approached, it started to sound like he would be ready to go when the regular season begin in the middle of October. Then, it was announced he would be entering the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program in early October.
This could be for any number of reasons, so we won’t speculate here.
The good news is, Price is going to be leaving the program this weekend after the minimum 30 day stay is completed. This doesn’t shed any light on why he was there, but it has to be good news that he is able to leave the program at the earliest possible date.
Price won’t immediately report to the Canadiens as he will first go home to see his family. However, it does appear he is close to returning to the team and should join his teammates in practice sometime in the near future. Whether that is early next week or later on this month remains to be seen, but the team’s star goaltender should be playing games again for the team in the next couple of weeks.
Of course, he didn’t have a real training camp. When all the other players were taking part in practices and far too many preseason games, Price was skating on his own for a few days before leaving training camp early to enter the Player Assistance Program.
After an excellent postseason from Price a few months ago, and a brutal start to this season, the team could use his assistance more than ever. Let’s hope he is back to 100% in the very near future.