Playing in Montreal costs more than anonymity
MONTREAL — You had the feeling that Carey Price would have found his smile in the company of a good horse on a dusty trail.
There are no Stanley Cup banners hanging from the vast, blue sky of his native B.C., the animal beneath him not counting saves or rebounds or goals-against, its only concern about the rider’s glove hand being his grip on the reins.
For a half-hour Saturday, the Canadiens goaltender stood in a forest of reporters to discuss his hockey past and present and future. Price spoke about his season, one of high peaks and deep valleys. He discussed the left-knee injury he suffered in the final minute of Game 4 regulation time against the Ottawa Senators, a second-degree sprain of his medial collateral ligament.
And Price spoke of the relentless focus on his work, in fact an obsession for many, saying lightly, “It’s up there,” when asked whether he might have the most difficult job in the province.
“I haven’t done anything else in my life except play goal. It’s a tough job, but it’s what I love doing.”
Price spoke of having talked about his work with Canadiens legends Patrick Roy and Ken Dryden, but being “so awestruck that I didn’t really think about what I wanted to ask them ...
“They know what it’s like to go through this,” he said. “They’re very supportive. I had a good, long talk with Ken Dryden just about life. It’s pretty cool to be able to just talk to somebody you’ve idolized your whole life.”
And Price spoke of the confidence he has in his own abilities.
“I honestly believe I can win a Stanley Cup. I think I have the ability and the mentality to do that. In order to do that, I need to reach another level, so I’m going to have to figure out what I need to do to get to that level.”
Price has grown, both as a goaltender and as a man, in the public eye, having played 310 regularseason and 30 post-season games for the club that drafted him fifth overall in 2005.
In his 2007-08 rookie year, at age 20, he won 24 games, double the number of his losses, with a sterling .920 save percentage. Three seasons later, he brought the Canadiens to within one goal of knocking off the Boston Bruins in the playoffs’ first round.
“You go seven games with the (eventual) Stanley Cup champion and you’ve got to think, ‘What if?’”
Price has ridden the waves of adoration and been pulled out to sea in the undertow of his 2009-10 benching in favour of the whitehot Jaroslav Halak.
“Mentally, it’s definitely tough,” Price admitted of the job, again having been handed the keys to the net when Halak was traded to St. Louis in June 2010 for the excellent Lars Eller.
“I’d be lying to you if I was saying it’s something that’s easy to go through. It’s not. It’s just the nature of the position.
“You’re going to be the goat and you’ve got to learn to accept it when you are. When you’re the hero, you’re going to have to learn to deal with that, too.”
The Canadiens have provided Price with unimaginable wealth; last July, he signed a six-year contract that will pay him $39 million. And with ownership of this hockey club’s net has come pressure, at times suffocating.
“There have been bad sides to this,” he said. “When you’re winning here, there’s no better place to play. But when you’re not playing well, it’s definitely tough.
“But it’s the only thing I know. I go straight out of junior to here.”
What Price does miss, he added candidly, is the ability to go through his life away from hockey unnoticed, a privacy he largely exchanged. Tough or impossible? “Impossible,” he replied, grinning. “I don’t even go to the grocery store any more. I’m like a hobbit in a hole. I just don’t do anything any more.”
The season just past, as remarkable as it was in many ways, didn’t end the way Price or any of the Canadiens desired. “I’m kinda disappointed, to be honest,” he said. “It was a tough end to the year and it leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
“I really liked the attitude we carried all season. Coming from where we were last year (dead last in the East) to where we wound up at the end of this year (second, winning the Northeast Division) is positive.
“But the way it ended leaves a bad taste. We’ll have to use that as motivation over the summer and get ready to make bigger strides next year.”
Price finished his season in the Bell Centre clinic, watching Game 5 while receiving treatment on the knee he injured. He instantly knew he was “in trouble,” trying unsuccessfully in the game’s final 23 seconds to skate off the pain.
“I was trying to get my butt on the ice and get my knees together,” Price recalled. “Your knees aren’t supposed to bend like that. I felt a sharp pain and the pop (of the ligament).
“When you injure your knee doing the thing that you need to do every day, it makes it kind of tough. We can’t make excuses (for the playoff defeat). We had plenty of opportunities in that series to own it but it just didn’t happen for us.”