{"id":428612,"date":"2026-01-26T08:17:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T08:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/428612\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T08:17:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T08:17:48","slug":"canadiens-wont-trade-price-by-deadline-but-what-about-the-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/428612\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens Won’t Trade Price By Deadline But What About The Offseason?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price is essentially off the NHL trade market as the Habs head toward arguably the most important NHL Trade deadline in the franchise\u2019s storied history. What about the 2022 offseason and beyond though?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s very much in play next summer if he can return this season and prove he\u2019s healthy enough to play,\u201d one NHL executive told Montreal Hockey Now. \u201cIn fact, I think if he had come back in January and played a solid stretch of games with the team getting blown out less than they have recently, the Avs, Oilers, and Canucks would\u2019ve come knocking at the deadline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Price told the media this past Sunday that at this point, he has no intentions of waiving his full no-movement clause for a fresh start with another team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t made any plans to do so,\u201d Price told reporters Sunday<\/a>. \u201cMy family and I are very happy here. We\u2019re settled in. This is our home. There\u2019s a reason I signed the contract I did here with a no-movement clause. As of right now, I have no plans to be anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the uncertainty of his health and the likelihood that he may not even play in another game by the time the March 21 NHL trade deadline arrives, that was really a moot point at this time; that is unless some team would be crazy enough to take on a goalie on a bum knee and the four years remaining on his eight-year contract that carries a $10.5 million salary-cap hit<\/a> per season. The Habs are headed for at least a retool, if not a rebuild, in the coming months and offseason, and very likely way beyond that. So, while Price\u2019s words should at least be taken at face value, for now, let\u2019s not forget that Price waived his no-movement clause to be exposed in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft for the Seattle Kraken.<\/p>\n

The NHL\u2019s 32nd franchise passed on the future hall-of-famer but don\u2019t think for one second after the Philipp Grubauer failed experiment, they wouldn\u2019t be willing to look into Price\u2019s availability on the NHL trade market in the offseason. The same goes for the aforementioned teams above and probably more. As Price\u2019s tumultuous comeback bid and just the NHL, in general, this season has proved, things change in a hurry. To rule anything out after this disastrous season for the Canadiens would be simply asinine.<\/p>\n

New Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes said that he and Price were able to at least meet face-to-face this past Saturday and try and get on the same page.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spoke to him Saturday,\u201d Hughes told the Athletic on Monday<\/a>. \u201cHad a good chat with him. There\u2019s not a lot he can say. He\u2019s recovering from surgery and every time he steps on the ice he\u2019s had a setback. He\u2019s going to try it again here. And we\u2019re going to see how the knee responds and go from there.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hard to know, it\u2019s hard to see the path right now. I\u2019m not a medical expert and I don\u2019t know the full extent of the issue that persists here. I\u2019m worried that it didn\u2019t work the first two times.\u2019<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Hughes and Gorton have no choice but to keep an open mind and not rule anything out when it comes to retooling, rebuilding, or whatever you want to call their challenge ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say we\u2019re viewing it as we\u2019re open to everything,\u2019\u2019 Hughes added. \u201cWe don\u2019t feel this immediate need to get everything done at the trade deadline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes and Gorton will make moves between now and then and then between the NHL trade deadline and the beginning of free agency in mid-July. Make no mistake, a Carey Price trade is still very much a possibility.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\"avatar\"<\/p>\n

\t\tMarc has been covering the Habs for over a decade. He previously worked for Journal Metro, The Athletic, The … More about Marc Dumont<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price is essentially off the NHL trade market as the Habs head toward arguably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5103],"tags":[265,2268,5,3550,1749,264,21,5147,4,14978],"class_list":{"0":"post-428612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-canadiens","9":"tag-carey-price","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-jeff-gorton","12":"tag-kent-hughes","13":"tag-montreal","14":"tag-montreal-canadiens","15":"tag-montrealcanadiens","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-nhl-trade-rumours"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115960421791672982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}