Yes I know i got my wires crossed, the team has a potent offense that was only countered by Lundqvist and not their own inability to finish and put the puck in the net.
And our goalie is crap.
Perhaps we should have picked Halak back up off waivers last year to replace the useless bafoon and go Soaring into the conference finals.
Here are the facts:
Our goalie is not crap, Price has been the best regular season goaltender in the league if you account for his body of work over the last 4 seasons, granted one of them was a lost season.
Our offense is average but we kept up with the Rangers in terms of generating scoring chances and shot attempts. Lundqvist was simply better and stole them game 1. Something Price wasn't able to do.
We have had Price for ten years, he hasn't made a huge impact in the playoffs in any of those years. He has never been worth 12 million (or even 8M) in any single playoff series he has played.
There have been many goaltenders in the 2 to 5 million dollar cap hit range who have performed just as well or better than CP31 in the playoffs in the salary cap era.
The best performance we've gotten from that position during Price's time with us has been from someone else.
With that being said, Halak is (close to being) done and has currently nothing to do with us.
Price has a history of (major) injury problems, especially for someone playing that position.
He will be over 30 before his next contract kicks in.
Contrary to popular belief, goaltending is a young man's position and aside from a few rare exceptions, almost everyone has their best years during their 20s rather than their 30s.
He was barely top ten in SV % among goalies who played 30 games or more last season. On the other hand, he was also only 0.04% away from being the 2nd best, which just goes to show how bunched up NHL goaltending is.
No goalie in the league makes above 8.5 mill, and despite Lundqvist's heroics against us in the playoffs, it is generally agreed upon throughout the league that his contract is one of the worst in the league.
Bobrovski who is coming off almost an identical season to Price's MVP year, is making around 7 mill and is the 2nd highest paid goaltender in the league. Price currently is not (if at all) significantly better than him. Granted we don't know how much Bobrovski might ask for his next contract, but do you see the Blue Jackets paying him 12 million? I certainly don't.
We have Lindgren, McVinen and (to a lesser extent) Fucale, who are some of the best goalie prospects in the league. It's the only position in our organization where the future does not look bleak.
Price is a technique-oriented goaltender, his attempt to make a save will be the same in May as it is in November. There is no "next-level", what you see is what you get. Which over a very large sample size is pretty darn good, but for a short series, where the opposite team isn't playing like it's November, it hasn't resulted into much success.
I could also go on a tangent about how blinded MB is by Price, and how Shea being his bff tempted him to trading Subban for him to the detriment of our team, and how we're on the verge of losing our best forward to free agency to preserve cap space for Price's next contract. But anyway, those to me are just some of the reasons not to sign him to a huge contract. Your milage may vary.
