Report: Price Still Plans To Play Friday As Mystery Builds For His Future

Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price Reportedly still plans on playing Friday and next season but the mystery surrounding his comeback attempt and his future continued on Tuesday.

After announcing Sunday that Price would not make the trip to New York with his teammates for their final away game of the season against the New York Rangers on Wednesday night, the Montreal Canadiens made a surprise announcement after practice Tuesday that Carey Price would head south with the team Tuesday afternoon but not to dress or play in the game. Instead Price will be reevaluated by the same doctor that operated on his knee last July.

Carey Price voyagera avec l'équipe à New York pour une évaluation médicale.

Carey Price will travel with the team to New York for a medical evaluation.

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) April 26, 2022

Just under seven hours after that announcement, TSN Insider Pierre Lebrun tried to provide some kind of clarity to the Price comeback saga and insisted that Carey Price is still planning on being between the pipes Friday for the season finale for the Canadiens when they host the Florida Panthers at the Bell Centre.

“Certainly it raised eyebrows when he decided to go to New York but only to see the doctor that operated on him in the offseason but I think that visit was always going to happen, why not do it when the team’s in New York?” Lebrun pointed out. “He still plans on playing Friday in the season finale in New York if he can so we’ll see whether or not that happens; but I think it’s the bigger picture that the Montreal Canadiens and Carey Price have to figure out and they don’t have an answer to that.”

Lebrun then made a point to reiterate, that as of now, Carey Price still plans on playing beyond this season but there’s no doubt that is not etched in stone.

“Carey Price wants to play next season; that’s the No. 1 thing you need to know,” Lebrun emphasized. “Nut he also needs to get his knee in an offseason workout regimen that gets him ready for that, and to say that and to say that it’s 100-percent that he can get there, I don’t think we can. So, there is a bit of uncertainty even though he plans to return next season right now.”

All of this latest news and speculation about the future for Carey Price came after interim head coach Martin St. Louis, on Sunday, said that as far as he knew, Price wasn’t being held back due to his surgically repaired knee.

“I mean I don’t think so, you’d have to talk to the medical staff on that but I think for us, we felt where the amount of games he’s played, give him a break without the travel and then hopefully get him ready for Friday,” St. Louis replied when asked Price had experienced this setback due to the knee he had surgery for last summer.”

Prior to the team heading to New York Tuesday, St. Louis commented on the latest development in the Carey Price comeback attempt.

“I thought it was a big plus for him to fight and get back from a long year of dealing with his injury,” St. Louis said. “But we knew that it wasn’t just going to be smooth sailing. There’s possibilities and I think that’s where we’re at and that’s why he’s getting looked at.”

The first-year coach was then asked if he’s had a pow-wow with general manager Kent Hughes and vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton about Price’s situation?

“It’s not my job. I’m coaching the team. I’ll let them do their job. They have to deal with that,” St. Louis said.

While the Canadiens – who have now lost nine straight games – have certainly not been good in front of him, Price has struggled. He’s 0-4-0 with a 4.03 GAA and .853 save percentage, allowed six goals in two straight games and has let in 16 goals on 119 shots. When Carey Price returned to start in a 3-0 loss to the New York Islanders on April 15 – and even more so when he stopped 28 of 30 Minnesota Wild shots in a 2-0 Montreal Canadiens loss – he did look somewhat like the Price that Montreal Canadiens fans have become accustomed to and fallen in love with for the last ten seasons, especially during the Habs’ improbable run to the 2012 Stanley Cup Final last summer. However, in his last two starts he has clearly not been himself.