The conversation is deeper than the asking price in this thread. The context being provided is about how some others think Price does not turn the needle for a contender while others are saying his playoff stats and career resume are proven. Lets not pretend this is only something Habs fans have seen with Price.
You can deny the trade idea. That's fair. But ignoring his resume and the latest playoff stats is disingenuous. Cause if his playoff stats were bad (like Patch), that context would be spitted right back at us over and over again as reasons to devalue him. Reality
This isn't true. The entirety of this thread is that the asking price is too high and the other critiques are examples of why the asking price shouldn't be that high. I have seen multiple posters (Mtl fans) asking for 2 x 1sts and 1st round prospects or a 1st, A prospect and B prospect (I would argue that a B prospect is typically a late 1st type prospect - Pelletier for example). These asks are the equivalent of 3 x first round picks or more. So a team needs to be willing to take on Price at whatever his cost is, right now its $10.5 for 4.5 years. Will Mtl retain? no one knows so this is going to greatly impact Price's value. I don't see a team being willing to eat $5.25 million over that time period in dead cap. Second option would be to have a 3rd team eat some salary - how many 3rd party transactions have a team eating multiple years? To this point I don't think there are any teams eating multiple years as the 3rd party cap team. This is probably a pretty good indicator that teams aren't falling over themselves to use 1 of their retention spots for 4.5 years in order to get a 3rd round pick. Now with the retention issue not really resolved, Price has a NMC - would he waive it? People are speculating that Price doesn't want to stay in Mtl for a re-build, but no one knows exactly what that looks like, or if he will limit the destinations he is willing to go to, so once again this adds a dimension that complicates the process. So those 2-3 issues are the most important items that will impact Price's cost of acquisition but then there are other items - recovery from off season surgery - how long will he take to get back to 100% playing capacity, is there any longer term affects? Price has been dealing with personal issues, where is he with these? Is his recovery a life long pursuit? Will this concern for his wellness impact his availability in season 1, 2, 3, 4...... - these are real questions when dealing with mental health or addiction issues. Price is 34 years old, his contract will take him until he is in his late 30's - will Price still be a starter in 2,3,4 years. His regular season stats have been average, yes he played great during the playoff run last year but he has had some issues since then and is he over them completely and still able to play at that level? Will age reduce his effectiveness, will injuries be more of a concern as he ages?
So teams that are going to look into acquiring Price need to ask themselves a lot of questions as they pertain to Price's ability to play at an elite level moving forward. This isn't a slight on Price, but a reality of professional sports. Does the risk and cost in assets to acquire correlate? I could see there being no interest in Price at full cap hit, and I could see the Habs not wanting to retain very much for the length of the contract. So some of these asks for multiple high end cost controlled assets seems to not take into account the impact on the acquiring team. Luongo, with term was traded for a goalie that was seen as being a draft miss and was in the AHL (Markstrom, yes he turned into a good goalie, but he was waived even after the trade - Canucks could have lost Marky for nothing) and a 3rd line winger (Shawn Matthias). I don't see the big, multi-asset type deal for Price. This is all just my opinion so I could be very wrong, but this is the way I see it.
