The Montreal Canadiens have dealt with a wild amount of injuries this season.
It is not the sole reason for their plummet to the bottom of the NHL standings after a trip to the Stanley Cup Final, but it certainly has not helped. It seems like every player has been injured for a time, and the numbers prove that as Nick Suzuki is the only player to suit up for every Canadiens game so far this season.
Many key players have missed long stretches of games, but no injury has had a bigger impact on the team than the one to Carey Price.
The team’s starting goaltender since Jaroslav Halak was traded well over a decade ago has not played a single game this season. Price was a huge reason the team was so successful in the 2021 playoffs, and losing him this season sucked the life out of the team.
Soon after the Tampa Bay Lightning hoisted their second consecutive Stanley Cup, it was announced Price would undergo surgery on his knee in the summer. He was supposed to be recovered shortly after the regular season began.
As training camp inched closer, it started to sound more possible that Price would start the first game of the regular season. Then, it was announced he was entering the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program for substance abuse. He was there for the month of October before returning to the team in early November.
Updates on his status have been hard to come by since then. Often times he would skate for a short period of time or it would be mentioned he was doing off-ice workouts to build up his knee once again.
A couple of times it was announced he has shut things down and has to start over.
Then, on Wednesday, the team announced they would be giving an update on Price’s status on Friday.
Canadiens to provide health update on Carey Price this Friday https://t.co/Jcjv4l2UwQ
— CTV Montreal (@CTVMontreal) February 24, 2022
This sounded like big news was coming. Was Price ready to rejoin his team at practice all of a sudden? Or did he have another big setback and he was shutting it down for the season? Was his career in jeopardy?
Who knew? But it seemed like something big was coming. Why else would they have to announce that there would be an announcement 48 hours later?
Then the came the big news today. What would it be? Pretty underwhelming is what it would be.
The team announced that Carey Price is progressing well in his off-ice workouts and feeling better and will not be on the ice for another week.
That’s it. That is what we all waited 48 hours for, thinking it was a huge announcement about the future of the Canadiens best player over the past 12 years.
I suppose no news is good news when a player is rehabbing an injury. The announcement could have been a lot worse. But why did we need an announcement at all? And why did we need two days notice that there would be one?