Price a mystery Leafs have to solve
Game 1 proved Montreal goaltender can still come up big at the biggest moments
There is Carey Price the man and Carey Price the myth. Both can beat you.
Even at the end of a season where the Montreal franchise goalie struggled, even with just two periods in the minors before he returned from a concussion, Price, six years removed from Vezina and Hart trophies, channelled all his manifest qualities to draw first blood and a pound of flesh from the Maple Leafs.
A big-game goaltender. A big-moments netminder.
And in the final frenetic minutes of Game 1 Thursday night, minutes that encompassed a Leafs power play and a six-onfour stretch with Toronto goalie Jack Campbell pulled, Price was a tall, cool glass of water.
He made a save on a Zach Hyman wrister, a save on a William Nylander slapshot, a save on a Mitch Marner onetimer, a save on a Morgan Rielly shot from 59 feet, a save on an Auston Matthews wrister.
Hyman also missed wide once and, on the doorstep, got not a sniff of a rebound, with Price smothering the puck. Rielly missed high.
The best chance for Toronto came earlier in the third when Price got a piece of a Marner shot with his blocker. “It was just trying to read, react, cover the low, as one wise man once told me.”
Price turned away 35 of 36 Leafs shots, 13 from the slot, including three each by Matthews and Marner, and four off the rush.
This was the superstar Price who almost single-handedly willed the Canadiens to a playin 3-1 series triumph over Pittsburgh last August, posting a .947 save percentage. Indeed, as the story goes, it was the prospect of facing Price that made the Penguins argue so strongly, and successfully, against a best-of-three format that had been under consideration by the league.
And that, the shadow a reinvigorated Price casts in these playoffs, should worry the Leafs plenty.
Nor is there much comfort to be taken from Montreal’s other man between the pipes. Jake Allen actually had a better season, statistically.
“New ball game now,” Price pronounced after the Canadiens survived Toronto’s late strokes, a taut 2-1 win giving Montreal a one-game series lead and taking Toronto’s home-ice advantage. “We had struggles through the season but got to the playoffs. It’s a new season. Just trying to take it step by step now.”
The Canadiens have consummate faith in their $84-million (U.S.) goalie. “He loves playing big games,” said forward Josh Anderson, who enjoyed rather a boldface performance himself, opening the scoring and ending an 11-game pointless streak. “When it gets to the playoffs, you have to bring it to another level and up your game.”
It’s what Price does, or is feared of doing, in the postseason and in Olympic goldmedal contests.
He displayed no rust following a month-long injury absence. About his one-off stint with the Laval Rocket last week, he observed wryly: “It was nice to get some game time, to diversify my hockey game portfolio.”
Freddie Andersen did the same with the Marlies, although there’s no indication he will take the net back from Jack Campbell, who was more than decent for Toronto on Thursday, maybe playing too deep on the Anderson goal. Campbell was certainly not the problem on a night when all the stars misaligned, most crushingly the loss of John Tavares, concussed in a heart seizing episode when the Toronto captain was hit by Ben Chiarot, fell awkwardly, and then collided violently, accidentally, with Corey Perry’s knee to the head.
The mythology versus reality that enshrouds Price — Montreal has not won a Cup in his tenure — received short shrift from Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe after practice Friday.
“I don’t know about that. You’re always living in reality, on the ice especially. I think a goalie like Carey Price, seems like the big moments are the ones that they kind of wait for. They just kind of throw the regular season and expect him to be at his best.
“That’s what we had expected and that that’s what he was, right from the start of the game. He was sharp. But we’ve got to do a lot more to make it more difficult on him and find ways to give ourselves more opportunities to score.”
Barroom debates often circle around who, among active goalies, you would want between the pipes when you absolutely have to win. Price, Cup or no Cup, is one of just three goalies to have won the Hart as the league MVP over the last 50 years. Of course, Game 1 wasn’t an absolute anything but it might turn out to be the game that changed everything.
Price’s strengths are obvious: He is a traditional butterfly goalie whose six-foot-3 220pound frame covers a whole lotta net, even in a deep crouch. Price is arguably best in the league at positioning, controlling rebounds — nothing there to jam — and puck-handling on the dump-and-chase. He rarely looks chaotic in the net, marshalling his energy, which makes it easier to recover from a panic save. Every movement seems to have a purpose and he’s near impossible to bait into making a first move.
But the 33-year-old does have his weaknesses, some of which became more apparent this season as his save percentage dipped to .901, with a goalsagainst average of 2.64, eclipsed by Campbell’s .921 and 2.15. Price has said he was “overthinking.” He had a tendency to drop to his knees early and get beaten high blocker-side. Challenging as it is forcing him to move and open up, the Leafs need to exploit that vulnerability while generating more havoc around the paint.
The Leafs buzzed and threatened in the waning minutes Thursday but they couldn’t disrupt Price’s focus. “There were a lot of bodies out there,” he noted afterward. “No surprise. I’ve got to give a lot of credit to the big boys (his defencemen) for moving them around, finding ways to keep the puck out of the net.”
And he sees the puck so damn well, almost mystifyingly well.
If his most recent stats don’t particularly send shivers up Toronto’s spine, there’s still the Price who, while a man of few words off the ice, evinces both elegance and swagger in the cage. Even his body language can demoralize shooters.
The Leafs haven’t beaten Montreal in a playoff game since 1967. They’ll have to go through Carey Price to do it in 2021.