Habs’ Carey Price A Big Winner In Vegas
The Montreal Canadiens are coming off their best season in over twenty years and it’s no secret that it was due to the ungodly performance of goaltender Carey Price. On Wednesday night, the NHL made it official. Price picked up a total of four awards including the big prize–the Hart Trophy awarded to the league’s most valuable player.
In addition to the Hart Trophy there was another ‘most valuable player’ honorific as Price won the Ted Lindsay Trophy for the best player as selected by his NHL peers. Throw in the Vezina Trophy for best goaltender and the William M. Jennings Trophy for the goalie allowing the fewest goals. Price dominated the Vezina balloting earning 144 points–Pekka Rinne was the runner up with 60 ahead of Devan Dubnyk with 28. Based on the scoring tabulation, Price was the #1 choice on 27 of 30 Vezina Trophy ballots. Ditto the Hart Trophy balloting cased by members of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. Price took 139 first place votes and was named on 155 of 157 ballots cast.
Price is the first goalie to win the MVP award since 2002 when another Hab–Jose Theodore–took the hardware. Overall, he’s the 7th goaltender to win the Hart Trophy. Theodore,Dominik Hasek (1997, 1998), Jacques Plante (1962), Al Rollins (1954), Chuck Rayner (1950) and Roy Worters (1929) are the others. Price was the first goalie to sweep the four trophies in the same year. Price was a monster in net this season–leading the NHL with 44 wins, a 1.96 goals against average and a .933 save percentage. He became the first goalie in over 20 years to lead the league in all three categories (Ed Belfour in 1990-1991 was the last).
Perhaps the most impressive accomplishment was setting the franchise record for wins in one season. With the Habs franchise known for stellar goaltending this is no joke–his 44 wins surpassed the previous record of 42 set by Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden. Price appeared in 66 of 82 games as Montreal posted a record of 50-22-10 for 110 points. This was their best regular season total since 1988-89 when they earned 115 points. They finished with the second best record in the Eastern Conference and overall in the NHL but were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by eventual Stanley Cup runner up Tampa Bay.
