Did Carey Price live up to his 8 year, $84M contract?

[Lazytrout]

Overall probably not, just too many injuries and missed time. The scf run is a huge silver lining however.

 

[Jurivan Demidovsky]

He absolutely lived up to it. It's not his fault he got injured. He was worth his contract. It's not his fault Bergevin couldn't build a winning team. Price should have won at least 1 Cup.

 

[Kegs]

Absolutely

 

[jfhabs]

No, injuries derailed his career. We had flashes during his contract, but he wasn't healthy enough to bring it on a consistent basis.

 

[Devonator]

One of the best goalies easily of the last 20 years or so.....he was elite all the way.....

 

[Lshap]

But in Price's case, it makes him look SUBSTANTIALLY worse. It'd drop him from that Lundqvist tier to the Vokoun tier.

This is completely and statistically false.

 

[Bombshell11]

He absolutely did not live up to the contract at all, regardless of the injuries and the SCF.

He would show up the first 3 seasons completely unprepared and out of it. I remember his first 3 seasons he would always start the season with the worst starts in the NHL, we're talking about bottom 60th of all goalies. To the point where official habs radios would call him out on air like 98.5 ckac.

Some of you should stop coping and gas lighting yourself, after the contract Price was at best a very inconsistent goalie.

You have to STOP with the GASLIGHTING

 

[SUX2BU]

No ........

 

[Ciao]

Kind of an unfair question.

Did he earn his contract while he was injured? No.

What would anyone expect?

The years he played he was probably still fighting injuries, but he did pretty well.

Hockey is a violent sport, even for goaltenders.

 

[TD Charlie]

Nope. Not a chance

At the time of the signing it seemed a bit steep and a bit too long, but at the same time it wasn’t totally unreasonable considering his numbers in the several years leading up to it.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

You're personal eye test aside.
Roy was a legend and a winner in the biggest moments.
Carey was a great athletic goaltender.
Yep. But he was no Roy.

Roy won four rounds, the Cup and the Con Smythe in his rookie year. 1986
Price in his rookie year, got to the second round where he had a melt down against a mediocre Flyers team. 2008. Didn't win his next round till 2014.
Price had one Hasek like season. Plus some pretty good ones.
Roy was great from 1984 to 1995. As a Canadien . With legendary play off performances.
No contest.
It's a compliment to Carey just to try compare the two.

As I said, Roy had the better career. But he was on far better teams. And he was wildly inconsistent. I don’t remember Carey Price ever losing us a series but Roy did that multiple times. I still remember Cam Neely scoring from center ice. And Roy never beat a team better than his own, Price beat better clubs with regularity.

Imagine Price behind those mid to late 80s Hab teams. He’d have been insane. His puck handling alone was like a third defenseman. Imagine Roy behind Price’s teams…. Completely different careers if that happens.

 

[NVious]

At times I think he was overrated, but he made the finals and honestly that is all about what you could ask of him in terms of being at least semi realistic given what he was working with.

Maybe he wasn't "exactly" worth it as a whole, but do you offer him 7.5-8.5 and let him get 10+ million on the open market and then you're left with Shea Weber and Patches as your team?

So maybe he was slightly overpaid, but better to spend a bit extra on guys like him who at their peak were absolutely in legit Hart convos vs being able to upgrade your 3rd and 4th line "saving" 2-3 million.

 

[TRG]

He didn't live up to the contract but also, he never had the support to do so.

 

[centipede2233]

everyone talks about his injuries derailing his career, but no one mentions the player assistance program…there’s a reason why he entered it think about it ie. Kuznetsov/nichushkin.

 

[sabresfan129103]

If my math is correct he only played 154 games after that contract was signed. That comes out to $545,000 a start. Pretty good deal for him.

I'm never a huge fan of paying goalies that much money, but I think there would have been a revolt in Montreal if they didn't re-sign him.

It'll be a huge relief when he's finally off the books for the Habs. It'll give them a lot more flexibility to do things.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Greatest goalie of a generation.

Henrik Lundqvist is comfortably ahead of Carey Price.

Vezina Finalists:
Lundqvist: 5
Price: 2

Vezina top 10:
Lundqvist: 10
Price: 7

Lundqvist's run from '05-06 to '15-16 is simply better than the meat of Price's career. Equally as dominant and far more consistent/reliable.

 

[Ignatius]

I think a comparable athlete in another sport would be Charles Barkley who was exceptionally good in his own right and had one season where he dominated and took awards from the GOAT MJ, getting his team to the league championship series but ultimately fell short of winning said championship. Afterwards he was never quite as good due to aging and injuries.

 

[miscs75]

Unless he passes away before his payment is finished I’d say he lived up right until (and past) the end of the contract.

 

[wintersej]

Price 100% earned the contract and then injuries and the team itself becoming bad made the contract bad. Although not bad in a harmful way to the Habs since they won’t be good while the contract is still on the books anyway.