Normally, politicians don’t make the best hockey analysts. But in this case, Francois Legault might be onto something.
It was a week ago when the Quebec premier, who had grown increasingly frustrated with the Montreal Canadiens’ latest slide down the standings, tweeted out: “Big challenge in 2020: Should we trade Price and Weber?”
Well, maybe not both.
But one week later, with the team on its second eight-game losing streak of the season, it’s time to at least think about moving one of them. And it’s not the one with the big, burly beard.
So the question is, should Carey Price take a page out of Patrick Roy’s playbook and join Hart Trophy candidate Nathan MacKinnon in Colorado? Or perhaps playing behind Nashville’s rock-solid defence is the best bet. How about Carolina, Buffalo or even San Jose?
Any of those options make more sense than having Price play out the remaining seven years of his contract in Montreal. Not with where this team is at right now. And not with where it’s heading.
A rebuild is finally coming for the Canadiens, who are on pace to missing the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons. By the time it ends, the 32-year-old Price — and the 34-year-old Shea Weber — might be too old to lead this team where it needs to go next. By then, it might be 20-year-old Cayden Primeau who has replaced Price between the pipes.
The window has closed (not that it was ever really open) in Montreal. This isn’t a team Stanley Cup contender. In a beefed up Atlantic Division that includes Boston, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Florida and a Buffalo team that is young and trending upwards, this doesn’t even look like a playoff contender.
Some might suggest that the Canadiens don’t look much different than the St. Louis Blues did at this time a year ago, when they got great goaltending and went on an unprecedented roll that began in January and eventually led to a Stanley Cup. At the same time, the Canadiens also don’t look much different than the lowly Ottawa Senators.
The latter might be a more appropriate comparison. The difference is that Ottawa was built to be a draft lottery team this year, while Montreal had been hoping to reach up and grab a playoff spot.
And yet, if the 13th-place Canadiens lose to the 14th-place Senators on Saturday night, Montreal would be on pace for 77 points and Ottawa would be on pace for 73 points. That potential four-point swing speaks volumes about where the Canadiens are today and where they are inevitably heading.
The Canadiens, who are nine points back of a wild card and 18 points ahead of the last-place Red Wings, are not getting better. Not with this roster and not with what’s waiting in the pipeline. Montreal needs another top-3 pick in this year’s loaded entry draft. It needs more top-end prospects to go along with Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.
It needs to do what Ottawa has already done and turn the page and think ahead three-to-five years from now. That begins by making some hard decisions at the trade deadline.
Maybe the Canadiens can sell high on Tomas Tatar, who leads the team with 38 points and has another year remaining on his cap-friendly $4.8-million contract, and get back a first-rounder. Maybe Ilya Kovalchuk starts producing and Montreal manages to flip him to the Islanders for a second-round pick.
Maybe they dangle Weber. But if this rebuild is going to get a shot in the arm, it’s time for the Canadiens to think about clearing significant cap space and moving on from Price, who despite a sub-standard season that has mirrored the rest of his team’s, remains Montreal’s biggest trade chip.
Chances are, it’s already in the works.
“That was speculated last night in Chicago — not by me, but by people in the league,” hockey analyst Pierre McGuire told TSN radio on Friday morning. “I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not going to speculate … but I’m sure that’s been brought up.”
Trading Price is not an easy task for a number of reasons. The first is that Price has a full no-move contract. He’s also making $10.5 million until 2026, when he will be 39 years old. And if you haven’t noticed, it’s not like he’s justified that salary in the past two years.
Price ranks 37th in the league with a 3.01 goals-against average and is 39th with a .901 save percentage. Then again, it’s not like the Canadiens have made life easy on the former Hart Trophy winner.
Only Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck and Toronto’s Frederik Andersen have faced more shots this season. Unlike those two teams, Montreal doesn’t have an Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, Mark Scheifele or a Patrik Laine who can single-handedly win games on their own when Price doesn’t have his best stuff.
After all, we’ve seen what he can do at the Olympics. We’ve seen what he can do at the World Cup. And unfortunately for him, we’ve seen what he can’t do while playing behind a Canadiens team that isn’t talented or deep enough to challenge for anything except for a spot in the draft lottery.
Now, it’s time to give him a chance to see what he can do with a team that deserves him.
mtraikos@postmedia.com
twitter.com/Michael_Traikos
