MONTREAL — There’s a tell. There’s always a tell. An indication that a goaltender is as locked in as can be. A distinct moment in a given game that you can point to and say, “That’s it, he’s not getting scored on in this one.”
It’s not always an acrobatic save that tips you off. Not always a windmill-glove stop, or a two-pad stack, or a scorpion-skate save. And in Carey Price’s case, it’s rarely any of those things.
Thursday night’s 33-save shutout for Price was no exception to that rule. Granted, he made some highlight-reel stops as his Montreal Canadiens beat the Vancouver Canucks 2-0, but the tell that he wouldn’t be beat came on one of the most innocuous plays of the game.
A puck was shot at Price from 60 feet away. It was more of a dump-in than anything, and it was soaring over his head.
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That’s when he casually lifted his stick and swatted the puck to the boards in one swift motion.
Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But it’s that type of play that makes you realize how focused Price is on everything going on around him. That type of play that belies everything else you’re seeing from him in the game —that it’s hard but he’s making it look easy, like he has so many times before.
That’s Carey Price at his best. The Carey Price the Canadiens hadn’t needed through most of the 40 games they played prior to Thursday’s game, but the Carey Price they’re going to need from here to the end of the season, as the playoff race tightens and the pressure ratchets up a few notches.
“You could definitely tell he was calm and confident,” said Jonathan Drouin, who scored the insurance goal for Montreal 8:24 into the second period. “There was screens in front and he was gloving pucks with no rebounds. That’s the Carey we’re used to seeing.”
It’s the Carey we saw from 2014-2017, as he established himself as the consensus best goaltender in the world. It’s the Carey we’ve seen since the beginning of December, too—and for the first time since two Aprils ago.
Last season was a horror show from him. He was flopping around his crease from start to finish, making everything look more challenging than it was, losing pucks in plain sight, losing control of rebounds, and losing himself in the process of losing all but 16 of 48 starts.
Price was steadily building his game at the beginning of this season. Then he suffered an injury in the first week of November and his play slipped dramatically until the final month of 2018 began.
Now the 31-year-old has won eight of his last 10 starts. All in impressive fashion, but none more so than what he offered against Vancouver.
You have to consider the circumstances, too. Price had missed the three games prior to Thursday’s contest and witnessed the birth of his second daughter in between. The nagging lower-body injury suffered in November had finally forced him to the sidelines. And there was plenty of concern a 12-day layoff between games was going to stall his progress.
Concern he quickly batted away like he did that puck in the second period.
“He missed quite a bit of time but he didn’t look like he was rusty at all tonight,” said Canadiens coach Claude Julien. “If anything he looked even sharper, so it was all good news for us tonight. And what does it do for your team? I think it gives it confidence, but hopefully not confidence to the degree that we’re going to get sloppy in front of him, which we were at times tonight.”
There were many occasions where that proved to be the case, but Price was there to bail the Canadiens out.
There was a left-pad save on Jay Beagle, a glove save on a Sven Baertschi one-timer, another glove save on Loui Eriksson, and there was that highlight-reel snag Price made on Bo Horvat after Canadiens forward Joel Armia threw a soft pass right into the slot that landed on Horvat’s stick. And that’s just what Price did in the second period.
He made 11 saves in the third, including three great ones on Brock Boeser, two on Jake Virtanen and another on Baertschi.
Price’s final save came with just over three seconds remaining, as he peaked through the maze of bodies in front of him and tracked the puck before squeezing his legs to trap a dangerous shot from Markus Granlund.
There was just nothing that was going to distract him in this one. Not a puck fluttering towards his head, or a Canucks player crashing the crease, or a potentially devastating injury Canucks star Elias Pettersson suffered in a second-period collision with Canadiens rookie Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
While most of the players in the rink watched the replay of the incident on the Bell Centre scoreboard, Price focused on his crease—clearing the snow away and preparing for the next sequence.
After the game, he didn’t have more than a word to offer on his performance.
“Rested,” Price said.
Jordie Benn, who scored the game-winning goal at 11:50 of the first period, said Price was “outstanding.”
“I would say (he was) normal because we’re used to seeing him play like that,” said Julien.
“What wasn’t normal was the tough year he had last year. So I think he’s himself—making big saves at the right time. He’s found his game and feeling good about it.”
Clearly.
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