{"id":198343,"date":"2025-09-04T01:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/198343\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T01:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:55:10","slug":"carey-price-trade-not-a-necessity-for-canadiens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/198343\/","title":{"rendered":"Carey Price Trade Not A Necessity For Canadiens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trade attention has once again zoned in<\/a> on Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price<\/a><\/strong> as the league announces changes to the use of long-term injured reserve<\/a> and salary cap in the postseason. The future Hall-of-Fame goaltender hasn\u2019t played since 2021, after undergoing meniscus surgery to address a severe knee injury. Montreal has kept him on LTIR, and thus received full relief from his $10.5MM cap hit, in each of the three seasons since. That cap hit and LTIR relief could each be beneficial for teams across the league, but Canadiens\u2019 general manager Kent Hughes<\/strong> told Sportsnet\u2019s Eric Engels<\/a> that he\u2019s in no rush to find a deal. Hughes said:<\/p>\n

\n

We don\u2019t have to trade Carey Price\u2026 If we can find a trade to move his contract that makes sense for us and makes sense for another team, we\u2019ll pursue it. But we don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Canadiens are currently $5.93MM over the salary cap, per PuckPedia<\/a>. Placing Price back on LTIR at the start of the season will bring them up to roughly $4.57MM in cap space, more than enough for next season. That cap relief underlines Hughes\u2019 sentiment of not needing a deal, and would likely force Montreal to bring back another long-term injury in any Price trade. They could balance their budget by swapping Price for a player like Logan Couture<\/a><\/strong> from the San Jose Sharks, or even by acquiring Shea Weber<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s contract from the Chicago Blackhawks. Both teams sit roughly $6MM over the salary cap floor as things stand, and could get a hardier budget by paying up for Price\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n

As for what Montreal could expect in return, the list of comparable IR moves has run a bit thin. Montreal used Weber\u2019s contract to acquire NHL winger Evgenii Dadonov<\/a><\/strong> from the Vegas Golden Knights in 2022. He\u2019s moved multiple times since \u2013 most recently in a trade to Chicago alongside minor-leaguer Aku Raty<\/a><\/strong> and the rights to Victor Soderstrom<\/a><\/strong> in exchange for a fifth-round draft pick.<\/p>\n

In the year prior to Weber\u2019s original move to Vegas, Chicago used Brent Seabrook<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s contract to acquire NHL forward Tyler Johnson<\/a><\/strong> and a second-round pick. That could be a better structure to hope for \u2013 though it\u2019s hard to gauge if the market remains the same four years later, and with the changes to LTIR. With no rush to make a deal, Montreal will have the luxury of sitting back until a strong offer comes through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trade attention has once again zoned in on Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price as the league announces changes…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":198344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[51434,291,19176,109950,3104,293,1328,62,67,132,68,3116],"class_list":{"0":"post-198343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-carey-price","9":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","10":"tag-injury","11":"tag-kent-hughes","12":"tag-montreal-canadiens","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-san-jose-sharks","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-vegas-golden-knights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115143542495799655","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}