Montreal’s Carey Price Out For At Least Six Weeks
For much of the past week the hockey world has been speculating about the severity of the ‘lower body injury’ suffered by Montreal Canadiens’ goaltender Carey Price. Price had suffered the injury in the second period of the Habs’ 5-1 rout of the New York Rangers last Wednesday. The first word from the team was that he’d be on the injured reserve list for ‘at least a week’ pending tests. Presumably, Price had the tests today but the team is still being extremely vague about the nature and severity of his injuries.
So here’s what the Canadiens *did* say–Price will miss at least six weeks for a ‘lower body injury’ that won’t require surgery. GM Marc Bergevin said that the six week timetable is a ‘minimum’ but made it sound as if there’s no surgery of any type: “What he needs is rest and treatment. It will take as long as it takes, but it’s a minimum of six weeks.” The timeframe is consistent with the ‘torn meniscus’ theory advanced by a number of hockey writers over the weekend. Francois Gagnon of RDS and CTV was one of the first to speculate about this type of injury along with the timeline–Gagnon said that Price would be out ‘at least a month’. The team immediately denied this report but without specifically saying as much they validated Gagnon’s reporting with today’s announcement.
It’s somewhat strange that the Habs are being so ‘cloak and dagger’ with Price’s injury. When Price suffered his original ‘lower body injury’, head coach Michel Therrien spoke in general terms about ‘not giving other teams an advantage’ by going into detail. That might have made sense in the short term but now it’s slightly ridiculous–everyone knows that there’s some issue with Price’s left leg. More information wouldn’t so much ‘aid and abet’ the ‘enemy’ but give the loyal Montreal fans some idea of what their franchise goalie is dealing with.
In any case, Mike Condon will take over as the team’s starting goalie. The original plan was for Dustin Tokarski to be the backup but he was returned to St. John’s of the American Hockey League late today. This wasn’t an indictment of Tokarski’s skill but the reality is that he wasn’t going to see much playing time behind Condon. Montreal would rather have him stay ‘game ready’.