The Montreal Canadiens traded Carey Price and a 2026 fifth-round draft pick to the San Jose Sharks on Friday.
The Canadiens received defenseman Gannon Laroque in return.
Price, 38, last played five games in the 2021-22 season for the Canadiens. The goaltender hasn’t played since due to injury.
The Sharks take on the final year of Price’s contract, which carries a $10.5-million cap hit but just a $2-million base salary. They still have more than $9.2 million in cap space.
Montreal, meanwhile, has about $4.57 million in cap space. They can accrue that space instead of putting Price on the long-term injured reserve, which means they could make a bigger move at the trade deadline next March.
Laroque, 22, is in the third year of his entry-level contract. In 2023-24, he played nine games with ECHL Wichita, recording two assists there, and nine games with AHL San Jose, where he had a goal and an assist. The Sharks drafted him 103rd overall in 2021. He didn’t play last season due to injury.
Price’s Time With The Canadiens
Price set franchise highs during his 15 seasons playing for the Canadiens, which selected him fifth overall in the 2005 NHL draft.
His 712 games played and 700 starts are the most among all goaltenders in the Canadiens’ 107 NHL seasons. Hockey Hall of Famer and six-time Stanley Cup champion Jacques Plante is second, with 556 games and starts.
Like Plante, Price is a Hart Trophy winner, receiving the most votes in the 2014-15 season, when he also captured the Ted Lindsay Award, Vezina Trophy and William M. Jennings Trophy. Price had a 44-16-6 record with a 1.96 goals-against average, .933 save percentage and nine shutouts that season.
Price also recorded the most wins by a goaltender in Habs history, with 361, 47 more than Plante. His 49 shutouts are in third place.
Price had at least 30 wins in a season five times, at least a .910 save percentage nine times and a goals-against average lower than 2.50 seven times.
Overall, Price, a member of Ulkatcho First Nation in British Columbia, had a 361-261-79 record, 2.51 GAA and .917 SP with the Canadiens in the regular season.
In the playoffs, Price went 43-45 in 92 games with a 2.39 GAA, .919 SP and eight shutouts. He’s third in franchise history in playoff games played, fourth in playoff wins and fifth in save percentage among Habs netminders who played at least 10 playoff games.
The furthest Price got in the playoffs was in 2020-21. He backstopped the Habs to a comeback seven-game series win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, a sweep over the Winnipeg Jets and a six-game win over the Vegas Golden Knights in the semifinal.
The Canadiens won the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl for the first time ever, considering that trophy usually goes to the Western Conference champions. It went to them due to temporary divisional realignment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the final, Montreal faced the defending-champion Tampa Bay Lightning. The Bolts won the first three games before Price stopped 32 shots to cut the series deficit to 3-1. Tampa Bay won the Cup in Game 5.
That was Price’s last playoff game with the Canadiens and almost certainly his NHL career. He missed most of the 2021-22 season due to a torn meniscus injury before playing five games in April 2022, winning one of them.
He hasn’t officially retired since he’s still under contract, but there appear to be no plans of playing again in hockey’s top league for the father of three children.
Correction: Laroque last played in 2023-24, not 2024-25.
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