Carey Price to Be Back With Canadiens For Start of Training Camp

Either the Montreal Canadiens are good at poker, or Carey Price is a medical marvel. Whichever the case, the belief around the time of the NHL Expansion Draft was that Price in a seriously bad situation when it came to his injury (injuries) and could be out a significant portion of the 2021-22. In part, that’s why the Seattle Kraken elected not to draft him.

The good news for the Canadiens and the potential bad news for the Kraken — assuming they really did want a healthy Price — is that the veteran goaltender will be back for the upcoming 2021-22 NHL season and shouldn’t miss a single game.

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As reported by Marc Antoine Godin Canadiens head coach Dominique Ducharme confirmed that the netminder is expected to be with the team and ready at the start of training camp, if not in the days that follow. He’s already skating and he should be fine, barely missing a beat as the Canadiens try to replicate what was a very successful 2020-21 campaign.

It was a surprise to many that Price was being left exposed by the Canadiens ahead of Seattle selecting their roster for the upcoming season. It was learned that Price had advised the Habs he was needing surgery and that they should elect to protect Jake Allen. His thinking was that Seattle would never select him when you factored in his $10 million salary and the injury situation. For some time, it appeared like the NHL’s newest team might anyways.

The Kraken looked into his medical records and did their homework to see if he was a smart play or a real risk. Even Price’s wife discussed how they thought they might be moving to Seattle and had come to prep themselves for such a change. Ultimately, the Kraken decided to go another direction and have Philipp Grubauer and Chris Driedger as their one-two punch for the 2021-22 season.

Will we ever know just how injured Price was, or wasn’t? Probably not? Will we ever know how close Seattle was to taking him? Maybe not.

It certainly made for an interesting couple of weeks though.

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