Lol, the return would have to be insane to retain 5m for the next 7 years. Multiple first round picks/prospects.
No team would do this, I think we are stuck with Price's contract for a good long while at least.
Things may change, but for now, in today's NHL, it just doesn't make sense to have your goalie as your highest paid player and biggest star.
In Montreal, we have been doing this for too long now. Pretty much as far back as I can remember. Roy, then later Theodore, and even guys like Huet and Halak for short periods, and now Price. We have always leaned on the goalie to win games.
There are times where it works, not even that long ago. In 2014-15 when Price won all those awards, it worked. The league was different, scoring was way down and overall the game was slower. Benn won the scoring title with 87 points. Stamkos had 72 points for 15th overall in scoring. Think about that for a second... 87 points was the league leader. If we look today, after just ~30 games, Draisaitl and McDavid already have over 50 points. Over 82 games, the 15th overall in scoring will very likely finish 80-85 points, which in 2014-15 would have challenged for the scoring title.
Last year, the scoring title was won by Kucherov and he had 128 pts? We had lots of guys in the 90-100 pt range and 15th overall was Ovechkin with 89 pts!
The league is different. It happened quickly, but scoring has gone way up, everything is less physical but much faster.
It makes 2 points clear:
1) You cannot depend on your goalie to be your main star. There is just too much scoring now, even good goalies let in 3-4 goals often. Most teams have realized this. The best teams roll with 2 decent goalies and alternate them, because they end up having to work so much more now that playing one guy for 70 games will just lead to injuries and fatigue.
2) You absolutely need, at minimum, one star forward to compete. I'm not talking about a guy who puts up 75 pts. This is not good enough anymore, it isn't 2015. Last year, 75 pts was outside the top 30 in scoring. You need at least one guy capable of either 40 goals or 90-100 pts, or both. Preferably multiple guys. It may sound like a lot but it really isn't, most of the teams in our division have this already. We are in the minority because we don't have one. It's basically us, Ottawa and Detroit. In the Metro, you have New Jersey and Columbus, and maybe NYI but they are playing a fantastic team game. The rest of the teams all have at least one guy who will put up over 90 pts.
Your star cannot be your goalie, you will not be able to keep up.