Player Discussion Carey Price - Why Always Me? Edition

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Spearmint Rhino

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Sep 17, 2013
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When he first came into the league he was like a robot, incredible positionally but no battle, he then found the battle gene to go with the calmness and positioning and he reached the level of elite

He now looks to have lost both positioning and battling at this point, maybe it's his GoF meter, the crappy D, energy level, contract burden or what but will be an interesting start next year to see which Carey shows up
 

sandviper

No Ragrets
Jan 26, 2016
13,365
24,193
Toronto
Price is struggling and as a fan, it pains me to say he's been generally poor this season.

However, I will still take the position that a lot of his struggles have to do with the defence (whole team) in front of him. I've played goal a few times in my minor hockey career (house level sure, but my point remains) and when you have no confidence in your team, you are forced to make decisions that you may not had before. If I was facing a shooter and I had a strong defender covering his guy, I knew I can just focus on the shooter. Sure, stopping him is another matter, but I didn't have to worry about anything else.

If that defence was bad (it was house, they all were usually), I had to be concerned about the shot or passing options. I wouldn't be able to commit or I'd over-commit.

Don't get me wrong, Price should be stopping more than he is. My feeling though is he's probably taking on more mentally than he should be and probably is having self doubt and lack of confidence. That said, I'm sure he is missing a defence that can transition a lot better from defence to offence, let alone a defence that can play defence.

Sure, they are pro athletes and blah, blah... anyone here that played organized sports, competitive or not, probably know what I am talking about.
 

Dongstoppable

Registered User
Oct 12, 2017
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Every elite goalie in the world, with the possibly exception of Lundqvist, has a crappy season in their prime that they bounce back from. Price has been injured, in and out of the lineup, playing on a bad team that basically hasn't had anything to play for since the first week of the season. I don't think his current level of play is indicative of anything other than a down season, and I'm excited for him to bounce back next year.
 

WinterLion

Registered User
Oct 1, 2017
5,251
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Can't wait for Holtby new deal in 2020, Bob new deal in 2019, Gibson, Vasy and Hellebuyck first UFA deal.

Everyone was going crazy over Price 6.5m deal and it ended up a bargain.

Lundqvist is paid 8.5m (with a full NMC) a year until he is 39.

If we consider the cap when their deal come active (14-15 had 69m and 18-19 around 80m), Lundqvist is prorated to 9.85 which is close to what price signed for.

I fully expect to see a couple goalies sign 9-12m/year deal in the next 3-4 years.


Yeah, the contract is ok if Price is a top 10 goalie in the league or better.... but he has been crap. Really crap.
 

WinterLion

Registered User
Oct 1, 2017
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Every elite goalie in the world, with the possibly exception of Lundqvist, has a crappy season in their prime that they bounce back from. Price has been injured, in and out of the lineup, playing on a bad team that basically hasn't had anything to play for since the first week of the season. I don't think his current level of play is indicative of anything other than a down season, and I'm excited for him to bounce back next year.


I really hope you are right.... he has changed how he plays so much though... I'm a big fan of his but I'm pretty concerned.
 

PaulD

Time for a new GM !
Feb 4, 2016
28,752
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Every elite goalie in the world, with the possibly exception of Lundqvist, has a crappy season in their prime that they bounce back from. Price has been injured, in and out of the lineup, playing on a bad team that basically hasn't had anything to play for since the first week of the season. I don't think his current level of play is indicative of anything other than a down season, and I'm excited for him to bounce back next year.
Price can bounce back sure.
But two things
1. Very unlikely he will ever have a season like 015.
2. The team in front of him in 015 was better than this team.....and they won squat.

It is very possible Price can bounce back and not really make much of a difference. This organization is that bad, while so many other clubs continue to get better.

Bleak
 

PaulD

Time for a new GM !
Feb 4, 2016
28,752
15,806
Dundas
When he first came into the league he was like a robot, incredible positionally but no battle, he then found the battle gene to go with the calmness and positioning and he reached the level of elite

He now looks to have lost both positioning and battling at this point, maybe it's his GoF meter, the crappy D, energy level, contract burden or what but will be an interesting start next year to see which Carey shows up

Interesting? I suppose.
 
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BlueBrunswick

Registered User
Jan 27, 2014
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80
I few things, I don't totally hate the contract, the term is not great, but the cap will be going up so the cap hit isn't that terrible and I'm sure he'll rebound. That being said, it's not fair for us to expect 2013 to 2017 Price, that stretch is just under 200 games, sure he was lights out during that stretch, best in the game, but he did have over 300 games played before that, during that stretch he was just about a scratch goalie - .915%. That was good, but hardly spectacular. I don't think he's as bad as the 50 games since, but if he puts up a 2.45 GAA and a .918 SV% next year, should we be disappointed? He's career SV% has now slipped to .918... about the same as over a dozen other goalies who have played over 350 games since he entered the league.
 
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Captain Mountain

Formerly Captain Wolverine
Jun 6, 2010
20,341
13,879
If you have two goalies, one faces 100 shots and stops 90, his SV% is .900. The other goalie faces 1o shots and stops 5, his SV% is .500. Their average SV% is .700 - their actual SV% is .762. The link you posted is the average of each teams SV%... the link I posted is the league SV%, I’m not sure why Hockey Reference calls it “league average”... in my original post I said the league SV%, intentionally not using the word average, because it is not an average, it’s more of what you can expect from the average goalie.

Uh, I replied with the average save %, I never said your original number was wrong. I only thought it wrong when you replied with a link that said "NHL Averages".

And I don't know that the league save% is working from the same inputs as the average team save %. Team Save percentages include shots on goal where there is no goalie in the net. For instance, the average save % of Montreal's goalies (saves/shots on net faced by a goalie) is .907 (Source).
 

Dongstoppable

Registered User
Oct 12, 2017
259
249
Look at every single elite goalie in the league right now.

Pekka Rinne, who will win the Vezina, started his career with a number of elite seasons, then a .902 season where he was hurt off and on and everyone said he was done, another .908 season where people were talking about the demise of Rinne... .927 this year.

Roberto Luongo, one of the greatest to ever play and having a renaissance in Florida at 40 was basically benched in Vancouver for poor play.

Corey Crawford, another elite goalie, dropped a .903 season in his prime.

Jonathan Quick followed up one of the most dominant seasons a goalie ever had with a disasterous .902, he's still among the best in the world.

Sergei Bobrovsky, even discounting his struggles early in his career, threw down a weak .908 between Vezinas.

Semyon Varlamov was maybe the worst goalie in the league last year, back in the upper echelon this year...

The moral of this story is that elite goalies have down seasons all the time and bounce back. Price is as good as or better than any of those goalies, and can return to an elite level next season and play at a high level well into his late 30's. This doesn't necessarily make his contract good but the reality is you can't let your franchise player walk away for nothing, so it goes. You win a Hart, the price goes up. So be it. His contract has nothing to do with how bad we were this year; we had like 13 million in capspace or whatever. The team needs to rebound as a whole, but I'm confident Price can lead the way back to the playoffs. A good draft lottery would go along way to speeding up the process.
 

nhlfan9191

Registered User
Aug 4, 2010
19,585
17,344
Look at every single elite goalie in the league right now.

Pekka Rinne, who will win the Vezina, started his career with a number of elite seasons, then a .902 season where he was hurt off and on and everyone said he was done, another .908 season where people were talking about the demise of Rinne... .927 this year.

Roberto Luongo, one of the greatest to ever play and having a renaissance in Florida at 40 was basically benched in Vancouver for poor play.

Corey Crawford, another elite goalie, dropped a .903 season in his prime.

Jonathan Quick followed up one of the most dominant seasons a goalie ever had with a disasterous .902, he's still among the best in the world.

Sergei Bobrovsky, even discounting his struggles early in his career, threw down a weak .908 between Vezinas.

Semyon Varlamov was maybe the worst goalie in the league last year, back in the upper echelon this year...

The moral of this story is that elite goalies have down seasons all the time and bounce back. Price is as good as or better than any of those goalies, and can return to an elite level next season and play at a high level well into his late 30's. This doesn't necessarily make his contract good but the reality is you can't let your franchise player walk away for nothing, so it goes. You win a Hart, the price goes up. So be it. His contract has nothing to do with how bad we were this year; we had like 13 million in capspace or whatever. The team needs to rebound as a whole, but I'm confident Price can lead the way back to the playoffs. A good draft lottery would go along way to speeding up the process.

The worst thing to ever happen was that stupid “best goaltender in the world” label. He was the best goalie, still might be, but the stupid labels made him appear in a tier above every other elite goalie in the league which isn’t the truth. We were never a lottery team without him. Just like we were never a first place team without him. So many labels thrown around mixed with Marc Bergevin making the team about him looks to have finally got to him because he looks like a mess out there and the only way I can describe it is mental. He’s certainly capable of a large rebound, especially if the team improves out of the lottery ranks.
 

justafan22

Registered User
Jun 22, 2014
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they're forced pretty much to make this work.

The only way I ever see him not finishing his career as a Hab is if he waives his NMC in the expansion draft for seattle. It's close enough to his home.
 

Tourist

Registered User
Nov 26, 2014
392
163
Price is the biggest issue with this team right now. 10.5 M on a 31 year old goalie who's been half of the time injured and the other half terrible. What a mess. Even if the goal is to rebuild the Habs need him to get back in top form to get some value back in a trade next year or next offseason.
 
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Lafleurs Guy

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Jul 20, 2007
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Price is struggling and as a fan, it pains me to say he's been generally poor this season.

However, I will still take the position that a lot of his struggles have to do with the defence (whole team) in front of him. I've played goal a few times in my minor hockey career (house level sure, but my point remains) and when you have no confidence in your team, you are forced to make decisions that you may not had before. If I was facing a shooter and I had a strong defender covering his guy, I knew I can just focus on the shooter. Sure, stopping him is another matter, but I didn't have to worry about anything else.

If that defence was bad (it was house, they all were usually), I had to be concerned about the shot or passing options. I wouldn't be able to commit or I'd over-commit.

Don't get me wrong, Price should be stopping more than he is. My feeling though is he's probably taking on more mentally than he should be and probably is having self doubt and lack of confidence. That said, I'm sure he is missing a defence that can transition a lot better from defence to offence, let alone a defence that can play defence.

Sure, they are pro athletes and blah, blah... anyone here that played organized sports, competitive or not, probably know what I am talking about.
Yep, they go hand in hand. No excuse for him at the start of the year though, he was just flat out bad. And I don't know why the brought him back after that concussion... that was just dumb as far as I'm concerned.
Price is the biggest issue with this team right now...
Not even close.

Even if he sucks for the rest of that deal and we have to eat 100 percent of it, he's not close to the biggest problem on this team right now. The entire makeup of this club is a disaster. Whether Price plays at crazy levels or not next season this team will still suck. We've got way bigger problems than a guy who might not live up to his big contract.
 

Tourist

Registered User
Nov 26, 2014
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Not even close.

Even if he sucks for the rest of that deal and we have to eat 100 percent of it, he's not close to the biggest problem on this team right now. The entire makeup of this club is a disaster. Whether Price plays at crazy levels or not next season this team will still suck. We've got way bigger problems than a guy who might not live up to his big contract.

Not even close? He's getting paid 10.5 M next year, has a history of injuries, and his numbers are some of the worse in the league at his position. Goltending is like a third of the game with defense and offense. I'm optimistic and think he'll bounce back but looking at it from a investment vs results perspective it is a huge concern right now.

To think that Price going from injured/terrible to crazy good will have no impact on the team is kind of strange. I get that the team has flaws, but of course it will be better if goaltending goes from terrible to crazy good.
 

1909

Registered User
Jul 6, 2016
20,533
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Maybe we saw the last game of Price in a Habs jersey ? That is why they let him get his record, and that's probably why he spent so much time signing autographs afetr the game.

Best thing for him and for the Habs organisation would be a trade out West.

For example: RNH+Talbot + EDM 1st round pick+ ???... would be good for both organisations. RNH+Talbot salaries = Price's salary...
 
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Zam Boni

Registered User
Dec 14, 2009
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Look at every single elite goalie in the league right now.

Pekka Rinne, who will win the Vezina, started his career with a number of elite seasons, then a .902 season where he was hurt off and on and everyone said he was done, another .908 season where people were talking about the demise of Rinne... .927 this year.

Roberto Luongo, one of the greatest to ever play and having a renaissance in Florida at 40 was basically benched in Vancouver for poor play.

Corey Crawford, another elite goalie, dropped a .903 season in his prime.

Jonathan Quick followed up one of the most dominant seasons a goalie ever had with a disasterous .902, he's still among the best in the world.

Sergei Bobrovsky, even discounting his struggles early in his career, threw down a weak .908 between Vezinas.

Semyon Varlamov was maybe the worst goalie in the league last year, back in the upper echelon this year...

The moral of this story is that elite goalies have down seasons all the time and bounce back. Price is as good as or better than any of those goalies, and can return to an elite level next season and play at a high level well into his late 30's. This doesn't necessarily make his contract good but the reality is you can't let your franchise player walk away for nothing, so it goes. You win a Hart, the price goes up. So be it. His contract has nothing to do with how bad we were this year; we had like 13 million in capspace or whatever. The team needs to rebound as a whole, but I'm confident Price can lead the way back to the playoffs. A good draft lottery would go along way to speeding up the process.

And you can add Roy and Brodeur to that list. Hasek had a slight drop in 95-96 as well.
 

BlueBrunswick

Registered User
Jan 27, 2014
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And you can add Roy and Brodeur to that list. Hasek had a slight drop in 95-96 as well.

Roy didn't have a single below average year in his entire 19 year career - Brodeur had 2 in his first 17 years, then every one of his last 4 years was was below average... only Hasek's last year was below average, in 95/96 he lead the league in SV%.
 

Lafleurs Guy

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Jul 20, 2007
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Not even close? He's getting paid 10.5 M next year, has a history of injuries, and his numbers are some of the worse in the league at his position.
It doesn't matter if he sucks for 8 years... he's still not close to being our biggest problem. The club is a mess overall and needs to be rebuilt. That can happen with our without Price making 10 mil.

We have no D. We have no centers. We use players in the wrong positions, are poorly put together and we've got a horrible GM. Those are way bigger problems than any one single player with a bad contract.

And all the above is assuming that Price sucks for the next eight years...
 

nhlfan9191

Registered User
Aug 4, 2010
19,585
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Too much like Jose Theodore. He also won the Hart and Vezina one year, never plated the same after.

Jose Theodore won his trophies in controversial style, tying Roy for Vezina, and Iginla, whose team didn’t make the playoffs for Hart. He was also a second team Allstar that season behind Roy and Iginla won the Pearson(Lindsay). Theodore never received a single Vezina vote before that season, or the 11 seasons after. It was a fluke.

Price ran away with the awards winning everything including the Ted Lindsay, has finished top 5 in Vezina voting 4 times, top 7 in Hart twice, and has received Vezina votes in seven different seasons. Not to mention he has exact same number of career wins (286) as Theodore despite playing 6 less seasons. I’m not sure how anybody can even compare these two goalies other then they both won a Hart and Vezina. Ones in a completely different class.
 

Seb

All we are is Dustin Byfuglien
Jul 15, 2006
17,282
12,314
Very concerning year for Price and we gotta hope he gets his shit together because the next decade will be long otherwise.
 
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