Will Carey Price’s future be with the Habs? The question deserves to be asked as the performance of the Canadiens’ # 1 goalkeeper has clearly fallen short of expectations since the start of the season. Several CH fans have also had fun sending Price to other skies over the past few days. RDS Video Games tried the experiment with the NHL 21 simulator.
Not easy to trade the 33-year-old cerberus according to the game from EA Sports. Despite Price’s immense talent, his contract of $ 10.5 million per year until 2025-26, combined with his age, diminishes his value in the transaction market.
Only two teams have shown interest in the services of Carey Price, namely the Chicago Blackhawks and the San Jose Sharks.
Blackhawks de Chicago
In Chicago, we would be ready to part with our captain Jonathan Toews to acquire a top goaltender. In the short term, however, the deal would not help the Habs in real life and would not allow general manager Marc Bergevin to secure his job. Jonathan Toews has indeed not participated in any meeting of his family since the start of this campaign, due to health problems. We still do not know the exact cause of his absence, as well as the duration for which he will be kept away from the game.
Price and Toews are from the same era. The two first-round picks notably won the World Junior Hockey Championship together, with Team Canada, in 2007. Both men also won gold at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Where Toews shines compared to the masked man at the CH, it’s in the Stanley Cups chapter, as he has led the Blackhawks to three wins since joining the NHL, in 2009-10, 2012-13 and 2014-15 .
Sharks de San Jose
In San Jose, we felt a real desire to get our hands on Carey Price. Without necessarily being more generous than the previous team to obtain the services of the goalkeeper, the Sharks filed three different exchange offers to the GM of the Canadian.
The first was a one-for-one deal between Price and Sharks center and captain Logan Couture. In addition to going for a first experienced center player in the NHL, the CH would save a little over $ 2 million on the payroll, an amount that could be very valuable when the time comes to extend the Suzuki. Kotkaniemi, Romanov, Caufield and company. In return, the CH would find themselves with Jake Allen as the first goalkeeper in front of the goals and an auxiliary from the club-school in Laval.
The following two trade offers are very similar, one involving a right-handed attacking defender and the other a left-handed defensive defender.
The first reads: Carey Price vs. Brent Burns, plus two draft picks (3rd and 5th rounds in 2022 and 2021 respectively). There is no doubt that Burns would come to solidify the defensive brigade of the CH, but with his 12 points and his differential of -11 in 21 games this season, it would be difficult to find a place to the right of the top-4, the two seats being currently occupied by Shea Weber and Jeff Petry.
The fourth and final exchange offer for Price would allow the Canadian to repatriate an original Montrealer to his hometown, defenseman Marc-Édouard Vlasic.
With this exchange, Vlasic would automatically become the mainstay of the Habs defense on the left side. He could easily be paired with Shea Weber, or even Jeff Petry, who has a little more offensive character that balances well with Vlasic’s defensive style. At $ 7 million per year, it would also allow Bergevin to save a little over $ 3 million annually. The snag again is that the CH would find themselves without a real # 1 goalkeeper, despite having a club designed to come a long way in the playoffs this season.
And you, what do you think of these transaction offers? Would you be willing to trade Price for one of these players? Let us know in the comments.
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