Seemed like a good lad too hope he is doing well in retirement guy had to deal with the craziest fandom in the NHL in the most stressful position and only had one player on the team that accrued 80 points in a season; his soundness with positioning and consistency was astounding truly. How did Montreal fumble this guy and not build a somewhat decent time in the years he was playing.
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How he dragged that Canadiens team to the cup finals in 21 is truly remarkable
I do indeed think about him and get sad (and I’m an Ottawa fan)
same boat as lundqvist
All the time. He was one of the greatest to don the mask. Miss seeing him play
Absolutely 🙁
Oh I just might have someone else in mind…
As a Bruins fan I certainly grew to respect him, I mean how could you not? But man do I hate this guy hahaha. Hell of a goalie. Him and Rask could split a few drinks over carrying their squads
I miss him so much. Watching him play almost every game was so much fun. If you want to teach goaltending, just watch his whole 2014-15 season. As close to perfection as you’ll get.
It is a crazy fan base (we are a passionate bunch), but most people here loved him and cheered for him.
What makes me sadder is how our “fan” base have treated him since 2021.
On skill alone. Arguably one of the best ever. If not the best
He was so fun to watch. Hard to admit but do wish he got a cup. One of the few that truly deserved it (lundqvist is the other)
Yes, I was a big admirer of Cary Price. I’m also a Penguins fan, and I just saw him stone us time again during an era when most teams couldn’t stop us.
I think Price is one of the best goaltenders I’ve ever seen and I don’t think he’ll be remembered with as much reverence as he should be remembered.
Price was the best and worst thing to happen to Montreal. He was always good enough to drag them to the playoffs, usually as a bubble team but because of that a weak team never got the picks they needed to do a proper rebuild.
I see him around my hometown every so often. I’ve even played in a couple ball hockey tournaments against him (I lost). It really is too bad he didn’t win a cup.
As a Bruins’ fan, I’m OK with Price not winning a Cup, because it would have been at the expense of the B’s. But he’s one of those players for a rival team that I have to admire and respect. Great player; seemed like a good guy. Would have loved him in black & gold.
It’s a shame that he and Handsome Hank never won a Cup.
Lundqvist
For most of his career, finishing last in the league gave you a significantly better chance to get 1OA pick. Price kept a team that should have been in contention for worst in the league, and consistently took them into the playoffs instead. That’s obviously not to blame him for the team never becoming a contender; the organization did fail to to build a team around him. But it’s ironic that his dominance played a role in never having a team in front of him.
He’s the only reason I remotely wanted Montreal to win the cup in 2021. Easily one of the best goalies during his time in the league and I am still mystified that at one time Canadiens fans were trying to run him out of town in favour of Halak.
Call me superstitious, but I think a lot of Montreal’s lack of Stanley Cup success goes all the way back to 1995, and Patrick Roy’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad game (12/2/95 DET@MTL 11-1) where he allowed 9 goals, was NOT pulled early on by head coach Mario Tremblay because he wanted to assert his authority (and ego) to Roy and be a complete dick to him. He was eventually pulled with 10:03 left to go in the 2nd period. Patrick Roy at one point gave the fans at the old forum a sarcastic salute after making a routine play on the puck. Once he was pulled, he passed by team president Ronald Corey and told him that he will not play for Montreal again. Four days later, the Canadiens traded Roy and Mike Keane to the Colorado Avalanche (formerly the Quebec Nordiques) in exchange for Andrei Kovalenko, Martin Rucinsky, and Jocelyn Thibault, in what is considered one of the worst trades in NHL history. Roy would go on to win another 2 Stanley Cups with Colorado totaling four, a fifth Jennings Trophy in 2002, and a third Conn Smythe trophy in 2001.
Fun fact: Carey Price gave a very similar salute to the fans after he made a routine play during game 4 of the first round of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Boston Bruins who jeered him in an eerily similar fashion. NESN play-by-play commentator Jack Edwards noted that Price was giving the fans the old Patrick Roy salute during that moment.
TL;DR Carey Price deserved better. He played on a cursed team because of the Patrick Roy incident.
Sincerely, a Boston Bruins fan.
He’s technically still under contract for this final year but it’s a shame he didn’t get to play out the majority of it. He could have become one of the greatest.
He made the Canadiens a broken team to play with/against in the NHL video games from 2012-2016ish
>Seemed like a good lad too hope he is doing well in retirement guy had to deal with the craziest fandom in the NHL in the most stressful position and only had one player on the team that accrued 80 points in a season; his soundness with positioning and consistency was astounding truly. How did Montreal fumble this guy and not build a somewhat decent time in the years he was playing.
It’s like you got halfway through writing this one and went, “oh fuck, I haven’t even thought about punctuating this yet, and now I’m out of time! But what a great time to test my random punctuation generator!”
Nice sincere post, but it almost snapped my brain being the first post I read after waking up. It crossed my eyes.
As a B’s fan, I got nothing but absolute respect for him, just a legend
2021 playoffs was the most fun I’ve had watching the postseason since I was a kid. Really wanted to see him lift the cup
Definitely miss him! My hope is he wins one with us eventually. 💙🤍♥️
Lundqvist too.
He played with one 80+point player her entire career. Alex Kovalev in Price’s rookie season.
Ridiculous.
He’s still under contract until 2026, I feel like if he came back for just one game next season the Habs Nation would lose their collective minds. It’s gotta be less than a 1% probability, but MTL does profoundly odd things all the time, so never say never I suppose
He was overpaid in relation to the cap at a time when it was 15-20% lower. Good goalie but overpaying at that position cost the Habs necessary depth upfront.
Him and Lundqvist. Greatest to never win a cup. And this is coming from a Nucks fan lol
Both Price and Lundqvist really deserved at least one cup! Two of the lowest scoring teams during their era.
That 2021 finals run was legendary. You’d think Montreal playing against the same few Canadian teams would’ve left them unprepared for potentially stronger teams from stronger divisions as well as having Ducharme take up the coaching job mid-season would’ve made them disorganized, but if anything, that all honed them to become a tough and gritty team to play against, protected by a stud of a goalie. Without him, they’d have lost earlier.
You know how much Habs fans love him when you never hear them complaining about his contract taking up cap space. It’s a pretty sizeable contract, and you’d think that’d be grounds to whine about. But if anything, it’s like, “he sacrificed his physical and mental health for the team. He deserves that extra little bit.”
I hope he’s doing fine now.