Rocket:
“Playing goal for the Montreal Canadiens is the toughest position in sports” — Pierre McGuire.
Well Habs fans, there’s no shortage of opinions today on what’s wrong with the Canadiens..but most of them revolve around Carey Price. “Price is still injured” “Fire Rollie Melanson” “Carey lost too much weight” Some of these bizarre comments make my head spin. Carey Price is a convenient target but he is not the source of problems for the Canadiens.
It seems that fans have completely blanked out the first period of the Leafs game. Price faced 18 shots and allowed 1 goal Even Boone said “Price is exceptionally sharp”. So how did Price go from standing on his head in the first to supposedly losing his technique in the 2nd and 3rd?
I was talking to a knowledgeable hockey person about the game. He offered this observation: “Carey Price keeps second guessing his reads on plays because he doesn’t trust his teammates to be there.” Exactly! While some are saying that Carey Price has lost confidence in himself, I believe that he has lost confidence in his teammates, specifically some of the defensemen in front of him.
Craig Simpson mentioned a few times that Price was playing deep in his crease. Jaroslav Halak normally plays deep but Carey does not. So when do goalies play deep? Remember the All-Star game? All goalies said they played deeper in the crease due to a lack of defense. The all-star goalies had to protect against the cross-ice pass. So there seems to be a parallel when Price does not trust his defensemen.
A prime example is Jason Blake’s goal that beat Price glove side high on a 2 on 1. Normally Price would challenge the shooter, but doing so Carey would have to be confident that his defensemen would take away the pass/the second attacker. Josh Gorges was the defenseman on the play. Josh was -4 on Saturday night. Price had to stay deep, and in fact was leaning towards the long side to protect against the pass. As result, the short side was exposed to a great shot by Blake.
This explanation also fits with Carey Price playing so well in the first period.
So rather than focus on Price, Canadiens fans should look at the defensive corps that has struggled all season long. The addition of a quality defenseman with power-play ability will help at both ends of the ice.