Carey Price will be in goal for Canadiens’ final game of season

Article content

Head coach Martin St. Louis isn’t surprised Carey Price wanted to play in the Canadiens’ final game of the season Friday night at the Bell Center against the Florida Panthers.

Article content

“Carey’s a competitor, so no, I’m not surprised at all,” St. Louis said after Friday’s morning skating in Brossard.

Price didn’t dress for the previous two games and on Thursday he visited with the doctor in New York who performed knee surgery on his torn meniscus last July. Price played his first game of the season on April 15 and in his first four games he had an 0-4 record with a 4.04 goals-against average and a .853 save percentage.

“We didn’t have conversations with him about how important it is for him to play tonight,” St. Louis said about Price. “I did not say that. Like I said the past couple of weeks, I was listening to Carey. Carey mentioned that he was hoping to play Friday. So, okay. I know that it’s important to him to just play. So I’m glad he’s playing tonight.”

Article content

So are Price’s teammates.

“What he’s doing to push his body to be able to play is inspiring for all of us,” defenseman Chris Wideman said. “He’s really pushing himself and that’s something that we definitely take notice of and we want to play hard for him and get him a win. So that will definitely be a focus tonight.”

Despite missing almost the entire season, Price still has the respect of players around the league. When the annual NHL Players’ Association Player Poll was released on Wednesday, one of the questions was: “If you need to win one game, who is the one goalie you would want on your team?”

Price finished second in the poll with 13.9 per cent of the votes, trailing only Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who received 37.4 per cent.

Article content

“I’m not surprised,” Wideman said about the amount of votes Price received. “I think if anything I’m surprised it wasn’t higher. I think I had been playing this year it would have been higher. You look at Pricer, it’s somebody that you know he’s in net you always have a chance to win. So we’re definitely excited to have him in there tonight.”

Jordan Harris grew up watching Price play on TV and now the rookie defenseman is his teammate.

“Sometimes you shoot on him (in practice) and it feels like you’re shooting a beach ball,” Harris said. “It looks so easy for him to save. He doesn’t even move and you’re like: ‘Man, I really ripped that shot and it just hits him.’ Growing up and hearing about him and now you see why he’s been so successful for so long.”

Article content

Harris, who will play his 10th game with the Canadiens Friday night, said one of the things that has impressed him the most about Price is his ability to handle the puck. The 21-year-old recalled to play during his second NHL game when Price stopped the puck behind his net and just stood there calmly with it on his stick.

“Most goalies just rim it around the glass and he stood there and he looked up,” Harris recalled. “I was like: ‘Huh?’ He’s so calm back there.”

Price then hit the centreman with a pass up the middle, leading to an easy breakout from the defensive zone.

“I was like: ‘Wow!’” Harris said. “That’s nicer than any breakout pass I’ve made this whole year.

“One time I called for a puck and he felt it the other way and, again, easy breakout,” Harris added. “I was like: ‘Smart play. I’m glad he didn’t give it to me there.’ Just little things like that.”

Article content

Price’s health and his contract will be big things for the Canadiens moving forward after a season in which they will finish last in the overall NHL standings.

Price will turn 35 on Aug. 16 and has four more seasons remaining on his eight-year, US$84-million contract with an annual salary-cap hit of $10.5 million. Price is scheduled to earn US$7.75 million next season, but only $1 million of it is in base salary with the rest coming in a signing bonus.

He will earn a base salary of $2 million in each of the last three seasons on his contract with signing bonuses of $6.5 million in 2023-24 and $5.5 million in each of the last two years. This season, Price had a base salary of $2 million with an $11 million signing bonus.

Price’s health and the $10.5 million salary-cap hit will make him difficult to trade. Even if the Canadiens were to eat half of Price’s salary-cap hit — the maximum allowed — it would still be a $5.25 million salary-cap hit for his new team. Only 12 goalies in the NHL had a salary-cap hit of more than $5 million this season. Price was at the top of that list at $10.5 million, followed by the Florida Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky at $10 million and Vasilevskiy at $9.5 million.

No other goalie in the NHL had a salary-cap hit above $7 million.

[email protected]

twitter.com/StuCowan1