On a day when the hockey world was watching Zach Parise, the Montreal Canadiens locked down their starting goaltender when they signed Carey Price to a six-year contract worth $6.5 million per year.
Price, who turns 25 in August, was 26-28-11 for the Habs in 2011-12 with a .916 save percentage and a 2.43 goals-against average. In 271 career games across five NHL seasons, he's 124-104-35 with a .916 save percentage and a 2.56 GAA. The Canadiens selected Price with the fifth overall pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.
Price's new contract extension places him among the five highest-paid goaltenders in the NHL, behind only Pekka Rinne of the Nashville Predators, Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers and Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks (Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings has a 10-year contract extension worth an average of $5.8 million that starts in the 2013-14 season). It's debatable at best whether Price has done enough in his NHL career to merit that lofty status, particularly since he was effectively unseated from the starting job two years ago by Jaroslav Halak before the Canadiens dealt Halak to the St. Louis Blues. That having been said, however, locking up Price to a long-term deal is a smart move on the part of the Canadiens organization.
The Canadiens are recovering from the disastrous tenure of former general manager Pierre Gauthier, and need to rebuild their credibility as an organization before they are truly in a position to compete. New general manager Marc Bergevin and head coach Michel Therrien will need time to retool the team, and having a quality netminder like Price locked up for the foreseeable future gives the Habs some stability. If Price lives up to the contract, he could backstop the Canadiens on a deep playoff run before his time in Montreal is through.
