Source : montrealgazette.com
So by a large margin, Carey Price still trails New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur in the National Hockey League goaltenders’ all-time scoring race.
But for a heartbeat Monday night, the Bell Centre crowd screaming “Shooooot!” Price had designs on bagging his first goal in the 300th game of his NHL career, pulling him to within a pair of Brodeur’s three.
“That was a perfect opportunity, too, and I threw a muffin up the middle of the ice,” Price said with a sigh, peeling off his equipment after his 18-save effort had backstopped the Canadiens’ 4-1 win over Carolina.
“It was my best opportunity, definitely,” he added of setting his sights on the yawning Hurricanes net with 44 seconds on the clock.
“I had enough time. I had to settle it off the boards, then one of the Staal brothers (Jordan) came right up the middle of the ice and I panicked. I just shot and it wasn’t very good.”
In fact, his attempt never made it beyond the Montreal blue line.
Price had an earlier chance but chose not to try with 70 seconds left, the Hurricanes having vacated the zone on a delayed offside and the puck behind the Canadiens net.
“That probably isn’t the best time to shoot for a goal when we can kill a little time,” he said.
In his dreams, Price has his first goal scripted:
“A dump-in, I kick it up off my foot and rifle it bar down, 200 feet in the air,” Price said, laughing,
“bar down” suggesting he’d nick the bottom of the distant crossbar with his shot that arrives four feet off the ice.
It doesn’t seem 300 games ago that Price made his NHL debut, beating the Penguins 3-2 in Pittsburgh on Oct. 10, 2007 for his first of 142 regular-season victories.
“Feels more like 600 games,” he joked, aware of Monday’s milestone. “It feels like I’ve been here a long time, but it doesn’t seem that long ago since I was in Pittsburgh, if that makes any sense.
“It’s definitely been fun and I’ve played with a lot of really cool guys. It’s been a roller-coaster so far.”
Price rubbed a grizzled jaw as he spoke, perhaps a playoff beard getting a head-start?
“Nah, just lazy,” he replied.
Price arrived in Montreal in the autumn of 2007 with great fanfare, having been the Habs’ first pick, No. 5 overall, in the 2005 draft. His resumé included an excellent major-junior career with the Tri-City Americans, an MVP performance leading Canada to 2007 world junior gold, and MVP honours a few months later in anchoring the AHL Hamilton Bulldogs’ Calder Cup title.
His roller-coaster in this city has been more breathtaking than the loopiest ride in any amusement park:
Five-plus seasons of being a duck in shooting galleries, controversies real and imagined, teams imploding on the ice and in the management suites, a shopping list of injuries large and small from head to toe, a franchise-high 72 appearances in 2010-11 (with an NHL-high 38 wins), sharing the crease with five fellow Habs netminders, and wearing more mask paint-jobs than you can count.
He’s signed three Canadiens contracts: his three-year entry-level pact, a two-year, $5.5-million bridge and then, last July 2, his deal of $39 million over six years.
Through 300 games, Price has fashioned a record of 142-110-39 with 19 shutouts, a save percentage of .916 and a goals-against average of 2.53. He’d dearly love to improve his playoff stats this season, currently 8-15 in 26 post-season appearances over four seasons.
His Canadiens highlight, heading into his 301st game Wednesday in Philadelphia, isn’t any one game, event or single save.
“Probably this whole year,” Price said. “It’s been a lot of fun. It compares to my rookie season, being on a really good team.”
That 2007-08 campaign saw the Canadiens finish atop the Eastern Conference and beat the Boston Bruins in a seven-game quarter-final before falling, their tank dry, in a five-game semi to the Flyers.
“There have been a lot of positives this year and not many negatives,” Price said. “We knew we had a lot of the right pieces to the puzzle this year. I thought coming into this season that we had a good opportunity to do some special things.
“Fortunately for us, we got a good coaching staff that have really given us a lot of direction.”
Price’s greatest strength, which some ridiculously view as a weakness, is his unflappable demeanour — to those who don’t know him, it’s flatline with the occasional bump on the screen to show the patient is still alive.
Those critics will be happy to learn that, for the past five games, Price has worn a multi-function heart monitor, the wristwatch receiver clipped into the back of his pants.
The man indeed has a pulse, topping out at 190 beats per minute during the game with an average of 120 bpm, which includes pregame and intermissions.
The “2336” readout on the watch following Monday’s game wasn’t the time of night, but rather his estimated calorie expenditure of the previous 5½ hours.
“I wear it in practice and I’ve been curious. I never knew what (calories) I burned during a game,” Price said. “It will give me a good idea what I should be eating and how many calories I should be consuming.”
Plenty, as it turns out. And guilt-free, no doubt.
Strapping the monitor on his chest when he arrives at the arena, Price figures by the data recorded that he burns about 300 calories over two hours, then another 2,000 during the warmup and game.
The receiver has proven to be shockproof thus far, no matter that he often crushes it during goalmouth pileups.
“But I don’t get Twitter on the watch,” Price said, grinning. “I wish.”
He’ll soon be looking for an upgrade, something with GPS to help him finally hit that empty net at the far end of the rink.
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