PRESS RELEASE
from Canadiens.com
MONTREAL — Goaltender Carey Price is the Molson Cup Player of the Year for the 2008-09 season. He succeeds forward Alex Kovalev who earned the honor last season.
Born in British Columbia Price ended the season with 53 points in the Molson Cup standings following a first-star selection in the last regular season game on Saturday against Pittsburgh. Price who had seven (7) first-star selections, five (5) second-star selections and three (3) third star selections finished the season on top of the standings ahead of teammates Alex Kovalev (44 points) and Andrei Markov (37 points). Price, the Canadiens’ Player-of-the-Month in November, ranked second for the March-April segment with a monthly harvest of 21 points, one less than segment winner Alex Kovalev (22 points).
Price played in 52 regular season games in 2008-09. He posted a record of 23 wins, 16 losses and 10 overtime/shootout losses with a 2.82 goals-against-average and a .905% save percentage. The starting goaltender for the Eastern Conference at the NHL All-Star Game presented in Montreal on January 25, Price stopped two of the three penalty shots he faced this season. He also recorded 22 saves on 35 shots in the shootout, the 5th highest number amongst NHL goaltenders in 2008-2009.
While I think Carey Price will eventually be a solid #1 goaltender and has shown flashes of greatness, he simply doesn’t deserve to win the Molson Cup.
The Molson Cup award is flawed in the way it’s voted on. This year is a prime example of a player who isn’t totally deserving of the award.
Unfortunately, a more deserving player like Andrei Markov is once again ignored.
He leads the team in scoring for most of the year and logs the most ice time against the other team’s top lines, yet a struggling and wildly inconsistent Carey Price wins the award…….makes no sense to me!
Is this a JOKE???
I think he won this simply because at the start of the year, he won a lot of games for us. Thinking back to the first 15-20 games, there were clear signs that the Canadiens’ team play was not there, but we were winning anyway – that was all Carey Price.
That said, I think he was inconsistent enough throughout the rest of the year to LOSE this award.
To me, the Jacques Beauchamp award winner should have also walked away with this award, but no one ever got in the 3 star selections based on hustle and heart.
Stand up and take a bow Max Lapierre, this should have been your trophy!
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