Now it’s time to win a Cup
Price’s contract is fair by NHL standards, it locks up the greatest goaltender of his time, and it makes the next goal crystal clear
Eight years is a good long while. Roughly two Gary Bettman lockouts in NHL time. It’s the span from the prime of an athlete’s career to the twilight, when writers begin sentences about your performance with the phrase “despite his age … ”
The deal Carey Price has signed with the Canadiens will actually carry him through the next nine seasons since he will play the next campaign under his old contract. The new deal, a reported eight-year, $84-million contract that will take him to the spring of 2026, kicks in with the 2018-19 season.
The contract is not exorbitant by NHL standards: Price will earn significantly less than babein-the-woods Connor McDavid will expectedly make in Edmonton with an eight-year deal that pays him $13 million per season.
The numbers, after all, are mind boggling only in comparison with what teachers and nurses earn for doing some of the most critical jobs in our society. By now, we’ve become accustomed to numbers that simply bear no relation whatsoever to ordinary families with mortgages and two jobs.
By NHL standards, Price’s contract is fair, even favourable to his team. The Habs have locked up the greatest goaltender of his time for the foreseeable future. They have the rock around which everything else will be built. Now, GM Marc Bergevin, who has had a good but not great post-season, has only to build on it.
He couldn’t pick a better place to start. As it happens, I’ve been lucky enough to witness Price’s NHL career from the beginning — literally. I was there to cover the game in Pittsburgh the night of Oct. 10, 2007, when the young native of Anahim Lake, B.C., made his Canadiens debut.
“The goaltending torch has been passed,” I wrote after Price beat the Penguins. “Ken Dryden. Patrick Roy. Carey Price. Last night, 22 years to the day after Roy’s first NHL start against the Penguins … Price played his first game for the Canadiens. Played and won, just as Roy did. Just as Dryden did in his debut in Pittsburgh in 1971.”
Price was all of 20 years old that night, so young he wasn’t yet born when Roy played his first game. Too young to be anointed a worthy successor to Roy, Dryden and Jacques Plante, although he would eventually live up to the expectations and then some.
In his debut, Price outplayed another young goaltending star named Marc-André Fleury. His first save, appropriately, came off the stick of a kid named Sid. His first great save came off Adam Hall on a play when Price had to spin and sprawl to his left, showing the startling athleticism for his size that would eventually make him a great goaltender.
But the thing I remember most about that night is the way Price loved to flash the leather, putting a little extra English on every save. And why not? He was young, he was spectacularly talented, he had been chosen to lead the most storied franchise in the game back to the promised land.
There would be many a slip ’twixt the lip and the Cup. The Stanley Cup, that elusive bauble won four times by Roy (albeit only twice with the Canadiens) and six times by Dryden, would remain elusive to this day, the one line missing on Price’s otherwise stellar resumé.
Nor has it all been roses and limelight. For a time in 2010, Price lost his status as the club’s No. 1 goaltender as the diminutive, unsung Jaroslav Halak led the Canadiens to the Eastern Conference final. But Pierre Gauthier, to his credit, made the right call (if the wrong trade) when he chose to keep Price and trade Halak that spring.
Now, with the contract out of the way, there is only one goal left and any Canadiens fan over the age of six knows what it is: win the Stanley Cup.
“You look at that lineup,” Price said of the Penguins that October night in 2007, “and you go: ‘Whoa! That’s some high-octane snipers!”
High-octane, indeed. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and crew have since won three Stanley Cups, including the last two, while Price and the Canadiens have fallen short for as many reasons as there are in the book — most often because the rest of the team does not measure up to the talented goaltender.
With Price now in the fold until 2026, the goal is crystal clear. Complete the resumé that includes world junior gold and two Olympic gold medals. Win a Stanley Cup. Get the ring. Get another ring after that one.
Price has done the rest. He has already punched his ticket to the Hockey Hall of Fame and ensured one day his No. 31 will join Plante’s No. 1, Dryden’s No. 29 and Roy’s No. 33 in the rafters of the Bell Centre. There can be no other focus now, for him or for his club.
To that end, it would be helpful if Alexander Radulov and Andrei Markov decided to return, but as Bergevin said Sunday: “If you want loyalty, buy a dog.” If Radulov and Markov elect to leave, it’s their decision — and their loss.
Because, as Price himself said Sunday: “There’s no better place to play hockey. For me, I’m honoured to be able to wear a Canadiens uniform for the rest of my career.”