Carey Price will miss the 2022-2023 season | “Disheartening”, but far from surprising

Kent Hughes has not beaten around the bush: the news of the state of health of Carey Price is “disheartening”. To the point that it is already certain that the star goalkeeper will not start the 2022-2023 season. And that it is likely that he will miss the entire next campaign.

Simon Olivier Lorange
The Press

In front of the media, Thursday evening, the general manager of the Canadiens did not have the heart to celebrate. He had, however, just acquired forward Sean Monahan from the Calgary Flames against these famous “future considerations” – as well to say for free. The Flames needed space under the salary cap after gold-bridge Nazem Kadri, and Hughes was happy to relieve them of an expensive player, demanding a first-round pick in 2025.

However, if the Canadian can “pay” Monahan, who will pocket 6.375 million next season, it is because Price will be on the long-term injured list from the first minute of training camp. Kent Hughes does not see how number 31 could return to play without further surgery. Rehabilitation, obviously, has shown its limits.

As “disheartening” as this revelation about the 35-year-old athlete is, it’s hardly surprising.

clues

The first clue appeared more than a year ago, in June 2021. Walking on water, Carey Price had just carried his team to the Stanley Cup final. However, a few days later, to everyone’s surprise, the GM at the time, Marc Bergevin, left him unprotected as the expansion draft approached before the arrival in the NHL of the Seattle Kraken.

The idea, it seems, came from Price himself, to allow his team to keep Jake Allen. The challenge was posed to the Kraken and its general manager Ron Francis: would they make Price, probably the best goalkeeper of his generation, the face of the 32^e franchise of the circuit?

Francis, various media reported, hesitated for a long time. “It’s never easy to pass your turn” when a player of this caliber is available, he told Athletic. But after weighing various factors, including his gargantuan contract and his injury history, the Kraken have, indeed, passed their turn.

The sequence of events became a long string of updates that only proved Ron Francis right.

In July 2021, Price had knee surgery. It was then estimated that after a rehabilitation of 10 to 12 weeks, he would be ready to start the 2021-2022 season in full health.

On September 23, when training camp opened, he was expected to play “at least one preseason game”. The days passed, but the goalkeeper never joined his teammates for a full workout.

Regressions

In early October, just before the start of the season, the Canadiens revealed that Price was taking advantage of the NHL’s substance addictions player assistance program. A few weeks away from the ice then led to a first regression in his rehabilitation.

In November and December, he resumed the collar, mainly in the gym. Before Christmas, he reappeared on the ice for a few solo training sessions. A furlough forced by a COVID-19 outbreak within the team sent him home again. Second regression, second return to square one.

At the end of January, Price spoke to the media and insisted he was aiming for a comeback before the end of the season.

In March, he continued his work away from the main group, as rumors of a comeback intensified. After a few more weeks of intensive work on the ice, he finally found his net on April 15.

In his first two games he looked good, stopping 45 of the 49 pucks he faced. In the next two games, however, he allowed 12 goals on 60 shots. On April 23, in Ottawa, he seemed decidedly unwell. Already, a leave of two games was necessary.

The end

On April 29, during the very last duel of the season, he delivered what oddly looked like his last game in a CH uniform. In the dying minutes of a game without stakes – his team won 10-2 against a diminished version of the Florida Panthers – he greeted his wife and children, while the puck was still spinning around him.

The next day, at the club’s end-of-season report, the goalkeeper put the cards on the table: every time he put on his equipment, his knee swelled. “Certain aspects of a goalkeeper’s job are difficult for me to do,” he admitted, adding that he would not see himself playing “sustainably” if this state of affairs continued. Yesterday’s game might have been his last, but he would seek other ‘opinions’. A new operation was not excluded.

During the offseason, Kent Hughes repeated how much he was looking forward to “clarity” about his goaltender’s condition. A visit to a Pittsburgh specialist and an injection of platelet-rich plasma, a procedure that was supposed to help his knee heal, didn’t give Price or his bosses the answers he had hoped for.

The real test would come on the ice, warned Hughes. In mid-July, he hoped to be fixed before October.

The desired precision came a little faster than expected. But it certainly didn’t go the way the manager would have liked.

Rehab showed “no improvement” last season, Hughes recalled Thursday. The knee injection, performed in June, “did not help”.

About a return in 2022-2023, the DG still speaks in the conditional. Examinations that Price will undergo with the club’s medical staff, on the threshold of training camp next month, will tell the truth.

Is an operation inevitable? asked a reporter. Hughes didn’t want to be categorical; we will know more at the camp, he repeated. But I can answer only with [uniquement] rehab, we don’t believe Carey is capable of returning to play.”

There was no follow-up to his sentence.