Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
No, it's not. And good for him for leveraging his career into that sort of life-time financial security. You will forgive me, however, for my substantial hesitation in believing that Price will ever position himself to win a Stanley Cup on that contract. The last fifteen or twenty years of history speaks rather powerfully against that possibility.
The bottom line for me is that while I agree that Carey Price is a very good goalie, he is not especially valuable because of the cap hit he carries. The gap between his own skill level and a sizeable number of other NHL goalies is simply not nearly enough to justify his price-tag. Therein is the problem: A winning combination is a goalie who is skilled, well rested, and inexpensive. Unfortunately for Price, he is only one of those things.
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I wonder if Montreal wouldn't be better off going even further all in on their goaltending. Maybe pay someone like Talbot $3.5M to come in and play 30 games a year. Because if your plan is just "Ride Carey Price", you should be giving him the full Kawhi treatment.
I know that's a crapton of money in goal, but they really don't have many other options. Price is 32, and you're not going to be able to assemble a superstar forward cast in the next three years when you haven't done it the previous 23.
I don't think you can win with Max Domi as your best forward, but with strong defence and a rested Price, you have a puncher's chance in any series.
He's a truly great player. He moves as well as he ever has. Goalies of his calibre regularly play well into their 30s at elite levels. Roy, Brodeur, Lundqvist, Belfour, Hasek, Luongo - 32-35 should still be considered prime years. .
I agree his contract is impossible to move, and the whole thing is a very difficult situation to resolve without salary retention. Who doesn't want Price at $7.5M?
Imagine Montreal trades Carey Price to Colorado for some collection of picks, including Bowen Byram, while retaining $3M. From an outside perspective, that would be just delicious.
Patrick Roy was 31 when he was acquired by the Avs. Joe Sakic probably makes that deal if he has the chance.