Montreal Canadiens Not Doing a Good Job Convincing Carey Price to Stay

The Montreal Canadiens best player for the past decade has been Carey Price.

He is the best goaltender of his generation and the Canadiens and us fans have been fortunate to watch him perform at the highest level in a Habs sweater.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to see much of him this season.

Price was incredible in last year’s playoffs, and though he didn’t carry the team on his own, he played extremely well on a run to the Stanley Cup Final. He put up a 2.28 goals against average and a .924 save percentage before bowing out to the Tampa Bay Lightning. This was a year after he had a 1.78 GAA and a .936 SV% in ten playoff games in 2020.

Clearly, the veteran still has it when the games matter most.

He finally was able to return to the lineup on Friday night when the Habs faced the New York Islanders. The Canadiens played a good defensive game in front of him, and Price stopped 17 of the 19 shots he faced.

However, it wasn’t enough as the Canadiens failed to score a goal.

Price’s second game of the season was Tuesday night when they took on the Minnesota Wild. The Canadiens defensive effort was not as stellar this time as they allowed 30 shots on goal, including several terrific scoring chances for the Wild.

Price was great, stopping 28 of those 30 shots, but once again the Canadiens failed to score a goal.

That means Price has played 120 minutes of hockey this season, stopped 45 of 49 shots he faced, and still hasn’t been able to celebrate a goal scored by his team.

Well, he did, and he celebrated it with his family who were sitting in the front row near Price’s net, but the goal by Tyler Pitlick was then called back for goaltender interference.

It has been a long year for Price who battled through offseason surgery, a stint in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program for substance use, and several setbacks in his comeback attempt from injury.

It has resulted in some speculation that maybe Price will want to be moved in the offseason. The goaltender will turn 35 this summer and has done everything except win a Stanley Cup in his career.

He has won a Hart Trophy as league MVP, a Vezina as the league’s best goaltender, an Olympic gold medal, World Juniors, the list goes on, but it stops with a Stanley Cup Final appearance and not a ring.

If he wants to win a championship in his career, he may need to try and do it elsewhere. The Canadiens don’t appear built to win any time soon with a roster that has them 31st in a 32 team league this season.

If there was any inkling that Price’s return would make them a much better hockey team, that appears to have dissipated quickly. In two games, the team in front of him couldn’t score a single goal.

The skaters in front of Price are not doing a very good job convincing him he can win here in the near future. The Canadiens netminder still has four more years left on his contract with an enormous cap hit of $10.5 million.

It wouldn’t be easy to move Price with that cap hit, but it also shouldn’t surprise anyone if he wants out. Had he thought he could erase what ails the Habs on his own, his team has proven in just two games that even with Carey Price in goal, this team won’t be contending in the next couple seasons unless enormous changes are made.

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