Can we discuss about the elephant in the room ? (Carey Price's play)

[1909]

Winter is gonna be very lonnnnnnnnggggg in Montreal for Carey (and Habs) if he is no better than what he showed so far at the camp. I hope he shifts up to another gear for the last pre season game and Game 1 of the season.

 

[CauZuki]

It's the preseason chill...

 

[Skip Bayless]

It would be nice if some day our team was built without having almost 100% of the pressure on our goalie.

That's why we need Price to suck a bit more.

 

[1909]

It's the preseason chill...

Last season, he chilled a lot... Of course, it was because of his new pads and new skates.....

 

[llamateizer]

I heard the Elephant in the room expression way too much in the last month

 

[Sthabs]

No matter what the play in front of him I expect to see a combative, sharp and focused goalie, its just not there right now

 

[thewall]

Can we stop looking at the amount of shots on goals and look at the quality of the shots and scoring chances. Telle me a goalie who would have stoped matthews, and Marleau 's goals.. even the Kapanen goal was bar down on a 2 on 1. Kadri left all alkne in the slot for the first goal. Andersen got beat by a clean slapper from the blue ljne with no front net presence.. price is the last of my concern.
The d is horrible and the fwd group isbellow average

 

[habsgirl5000]

#1 goalies on almost every team, usually has sub par performances in the preseason. None of them put too much into their pre seasons....

Price is no different

Yes he is....

The difference is, our #1 goalie stunk the joint out all last season

 

[Saundies]

His contract doesn't bother me until it really becomes a problem. It's not like Bergevin is spending up to the cap anyway and we're not going to contend for a while, so it's not like we're up against it financially with a need to add players for a long run.


Just another flavour of the week story. If it continues into the season then yeah, it'll be an issue to be discussed , but until then..

 

[scrubadam]

The point is that 10m+ doesn't equate to a player being able to carry the team.

So all the whining about how Price should carry us because he makes 10m is just BS. No player can carry a team by himself, and 10m isn't the salary you would give a guy who could.

As for the stats, a forward's stats are less dependent on the team in front of him then the goalies stats. SV% is extremely dependent on how good a job the team is doing keeping shots to the outside. A goalie is going to have a bad SV% and GAA if the team that gives up the slot constantly.

For forwards, it's a lot easier to produce even if you don't have a lot of help from teamates.

I dont want Price to carry the team, but if he is part of the solution not part of the problem I expect a .920 from him. .920 isn't even that elite in the NHL today.

Nieme had a .929 last year and the team still lost, at least he put up respectable numbers. But I am not going to blame his teammates all season long if he is giving the team .900 or less. Thats not acceptable for a 10.5 million goalie who some call one of the best.

Just like if Drouin puts up another 40 points this year he will get crapped on and no one is going to blame his linemates.

 

[scrubadam]

Do you also expect a forward being paid 8 figures to carry the team on his back? If so does that mean McDavid isn't living up to his contract?

And more importantly, if a single player can carry the team by himself, and that should cost you 10m. How come there are a bunch of teams out there with multiple 10m+ players? How can the team with only 1 of those players compete with a team that has multiple?

question is do you expect a forward paid 8 figures to score goals and get assists? If McDavid had 50 points it would be ok?

Price doesn't have to carry the team, just play like a good goalie and stop 92% of your shots. Or you are OK with him giving the team sub .900%?

 

[scrubadam]

Err...but Anderson didn't face the likes of Matthews, Marner or Tavares. Our offense that he faced is...well...lacking. Embarrassingly so.

Guess what Price plays in the NHL and every team he faces is going to have the best players in the world. So if you are saying Price isn't good enough to face NHL players then let him play in the AHL where he can face easier competition.

The guy used to stop Crosby and Ovie and Malkin and Stamkos etc... But saying he faces elite players doesn't cut it because the NHL is full of elite forwards and as a starting goalie he is going to face those players all season long.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

What I expect is for Price to play well and keep us in games so they'll be exciting, but still lose by a goal.

 

[WinterLion]

Price is always on his knees. H is going down way sooner than he used to. I think this is to reduce the strain on his groin...but damn, he is not the same goalie.

 

[Gally11]

Price will be fine, I can’t remember him ever having an outstanding preseason

 

[Routs]

Price is always on his knees. H is going down way sooner than he used to. I think this is to reduce the strain on his groin...but damn, he is not the same goalie.

That's the one thing that threw me off last night. The commentators did say he looked small on one of the plays and I completely agree. He's a big dude and even when he used to be on his pads he still looked big. Last night he was on his pads but his torso was super low as well.

I really do think that he and the goalie coach are trying things out while they can. Not worried until the games count.

 

[THE HOFF]

Weber is key to Carey's season. If carey/niemi can put reasonable performances together and have the team at .500 by the time he comes back it will be very interesting.

 

[Sorinth]

question is do you expect a forward paid 8 figures to score goals and get assists? If McDavid had 50 points it would be ok?

Price doesn't have to carry the team, just play like a good goalie and stop 92% of your shots. Or you are OK with him giving the team sub .900%?

I dont want Price to carry the team, but if he is part of the solution not part of the problem I expect a .920 from him. .920 isn't even that elite in the NHL today.

Nieme had a .929 last year and the team still lost, at least he put up respectable numbers. But I am not going to blame his teammates all season long if he is giving the team .900 or less. Thats not acceptable for a 10.5 million goalie who some call one of the best.

Just like if Drouin puts up another 40 points this year he will get crapped on and no one is going to blame his linemates.

The difference is that teammates have a much smaller impact on a forwards points then on a goalies SV%.

If goalie A faces 10 shots coming from two on ones and 20 shots from the outside and let's in 3 goals and goalie B faces 4 shots coming from two on ones and 26 shots from the outside and let's in 2 goals. Which was the better goalie,
Goalie A with a 3.00 GAA and a .900 SV%
or
Goalie B with a 2.00 GAA and a .928 SV%

One looks like barely an NHL level goalie by the stats, the other looks like an allstar, but what really happened was one played well but was left out to dry by terrible defence, and the other was average but played in front of good defence.

 

[BaseballCoach]

Price looks completely out of whack so far this pre-season ; what the heck is going on with him ?
Changed his stance
Lateral movements uncontrolled
Slow as f^€÷¢
Can we expect a repeat of last season ?

We probably can.

No, I think it gets worse. Something looks wrong physically. After 5 weeks out last year, he briefly looked partially better, but after more wear and tear, was horrible again.

It's happened to pro athletes before where one minute they are perfectly tuned, and suddenly their body looks all wrong. The reason is usually bad, and that is what I have feared for a year already.

 

[Saundies]

Somebody already said this but the quality of the goals against last night should come into consideration. No goalie in the world is stopping that Matthews shot, the Marleau goal was an absolutely terrible own-zone giveaway by Gally to two premier scorers in the league, and Petry played that 2 on 1 horribly. The fluke goal was half Petry half Price as well. The only one you could make a case for is Kadri's, which, maybe, but not a bad shot by any means.

 

[peate]

That time he told people to chill after a bad pre-season game, wasn't that the year he won everything? Just a coincidence, but I'm not sure of the year he said it.

He's the highest paid goalie, he should play like it. Last year he wasn't even close to back-up quality. I sure hope he bounces back, but then again, are we tanking or not?

 

[habsgirl5000]

Weber is key to Carey's season. If carey/niemi can put reasonable performances together and have the team at .500 by the time he comes back it will be very interesting.

We were not 500 with Weber last season, the team got worse over the summer, how can anybody think we will be anywhere near 500 this season? The only time we will be 500 is before we play our first game

 

[Stive Morgan]

What I'm thinking is, when all our pieces are in their prime, Price will likely be old and crappy. I'm hoping Primeau works out but I'd really like to draft Dustin Wolf or Nolan Maier this year.

 

[sandviper]

Somebody already said this but the quality of the goals against last night should come into consideration. No goalie in the world is stopping that Matthews shot, the Marleau goal was an absolutely terrible own-zone giveaway by Gally to two premier scorers in the league, and Petry played that 2 on 1 horribly. The fluke goal was half Petry half Price as well. The only one you could make a case for is Kadri's, which, maybe, but not a bad shot by any means.

I posted this in the PGT, but here's more or less a c/p:

The Kadri goal was all about his technique, or lack of. My issue with that play was he was down far too early and never challenged the shooter. Maybe he didn't know Kadri had the puck, but Price was far too deep in his crease to really do anything.

Matthews goal? That was a legit snipe and I recall it being bar down.

Marner... smh. Carey isn't blameless, but that was on Petry.

Kapanen was a tough one to stop. Lindholm actually drew his wrists back which to Price I can see him mistake it for a wrister, but then Lindholm slid it over to Kapanen who caught Carey sliding. Petry again was the one who messed the original play up to cause the 2-on-1. He also didn't do enough to force the puck carrier to shoot and failed to stop the pass.

Marleau basically one timed his goal. It wasn't an Ovi rocket, but he was so close, it may as well had been.

Basically, the Kadri goal I did consider a bad one as Price didn't do enough. I'm sure the Kapanen and Marleau ones he'd like back but I wouldn't put it all on him. I mean, all the Toronto goals were beneath the face-off dots in the dZone, and 4 of them were bang bang pass/shoot plays.

 

[Rapala]

I didn't really see anything to be super concerned about. As a goalie that's some normal adjustments when trying to get back into form. If it continues then I'll wonder if that chronic fatigue issue isn't fully fixed.

I'd like to see more pucks dying on him like we do when he's in his zone. I can honestly say I hate his mechanics right now. Not only are the pucks eluding him but he is not the quiet goalie we know when he's at or near his best. The problem for Carey is the sheer number of brain dead plays he's expected to clean up has him over anticipating many of those in tight plays. No timing and always down early. This could be long term given our D.