Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price salutes the crowd following a 4-3 overtime win over the Detroit Red Wings Thursday, April 9, 2015 in Montreal.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
To play for the Montreal Canadiens is to be reminded constantly of the club's weighty history and past glories.
Outside the home dressing room at the Bell Centre stands a glass case with miniature replicas of the 24 Stanley Cups the club has won – players must walk past it on the way to the parking lot.
Inside, the expansive room is ringed with pictures of the team's 46 Hall of Famers.
"I've been looking at them for quite a while," current Habs goalie Carey Price said this week after setting a franchise record for wins in a single season. "We have a lot of respect for what it takes to get up there and what they've accomplished in their careers. It's definitely special playing here."
Price's stall sits below Sprague Cleghorn, Herb Gardiner and Sylvio Mantha, although goaltenders Georges Vézina (a player so good they named the trophy for goaltending excellence after him) and George Hainsworth (who captured the Vézina the first three times it was awarded) are nearby.
The 27-year-old native of Anahim Lake, B.C., is a lock for this year's Vézina, but would be mortified to be counted among their number. He has yet to capture the Cup, after all. Yet the simple fact is he has accomplished something exceedingly special this season.
He outdistanced legends Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden by winning his 43rd game against the Detroit Red Wings last Thursday. Recording No. 44 in Toronto against the Maple Leafs on Saturday – the site of his first win last October – was a fitting book-end.
"I think we can be proud of what we've accomplished this season. It went by pretty fast, actually," he told reporters afterward.
It's a typical understatement from Price, as relaxed and equable a character as there is in the NHL.
He prefers to speak more about his teammates than himself, and he's not especially given to dwelling on his place in history – "It hasn't really hit me yet. I'm just doing my thing."
That Price has reached this point is an accomplishment in itself.
Not because of his back story (long rides in a Piper Cherokee from the Native community where he grew up to Williams Lake, B.C., where he played hockey) but because of the fact he lost his job five years ago.
In the spring of 2009, as the Habs were pummelled by the arch-rival Boston Bruins in the playoffs, Price infamously told off the booing Bell Centre denizens by imitating Hall of Famer Patrick Roy's defiant arms-raised gesture.
At the postseason news conference he wore a ball cap pulled low over his eyes and a sullen expression – the commentariat reacted with predictable restraint (i.e., howls of rage).
Bob Gainey, another Hall of Famer and then the general manager of the team, predicted his netminder, "a thoroughbred," was destined for greatness.
But matters appeared to get worse for Price the following season as the Habs went on an improbable playoff run, led by backup goalie Jaroslav Halak.
But in the summer of 2010, the Canadiens brass opted to trade Halak and re-sign Price. Laughable as it seems today, the move provoked a controversy. And when Price was showered with a smattering of boos the next fall in a preseason game against Boston, he famously told fans to "chill out."
It may have been the last time he was booed: Cheers of "Ca-rey, Ca-rey" have replaced the jeers and he is easily the team's most venerated player.
Since that fall, Price is also firmly entrenched among the NHL's goaltending elite, although his performance in the past two seasons – capped by a flawless performance for Canada at the Sochi Winter Olympics – has vaulted him to the very top of the pile.
Not that Price, who once described himself to a Globe reporter as "just another guy who lives in the suburbs," is much bothered by any of that.
Asked this week whether he ever thinks back to the difficult times, he said, "I've always been a guy that kinda looks forward."
Eight Habs goalies have been honoured with busts in the Hall of Fame, but none won more games in a season than Price just did (sticklers will note teams played much shorter seasons up until the 1960s; Hainsworth recorded all 22 of his victories in the 44-game 1928-29 season by shutout – a record that surely will never be broken).
Although it's far too early to predict whether Price will ever join them, he is in the midst of his prime and could play another decade or more.
But his teammates will tell you that having him on the ice lowers their stress level considerably. As winger Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau put it: "The one thing we know for sure every night is we're not going to get smoked."
The challenge now is for the Habs to return to the Stanley Cup winner's circle for the first time since 1993, when they were led by a dominant Roy.
The league has changed since then, and the odds are against Montreal. But the players are undaunted.
"With that guy in goal," teammate P.K. Subban said, "anything is possible."
4 Key Moments in Carey Price's season
Every Canadiens player can tell you about witnessing a mind-bending save from Carey Price while they were on the ice, although some can't narrow it down to just one. "There are too many to count," said P.A. Parenteau. Here are some of the highlights from the 2014-15 regular season:
Dec. 12, 2014
Price faced his childhood favourite Vancouver Canucks at the Bell Centre in his first start after three successive road losses. Just over a minute into the game, the Habs' first following the death of franchise icon Jean Béliveau, he made a headlong plunge to smother the puck and rob Nick Bonino of a goal. His teammates took it from there. Two days later he faced down the Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings, leading the Habs to a 6-2 win despite facing 46 shots. A pair of highlight-reel saves during a second-period L.A. power play kept the game close. "I think Carey Price was really, really, good, wasn't he?" Kings coach Darryl Sutter would say. Those wins kicked off a 24-3-2 stretch of starts, including 10 straight wins on the road, between consecutive regulation losses.
Feb. 8, 2015
When Price is at his sharpest there usually isn't any requirement for him to make acrobatic stops. Which doesn't mean he can't do it when called upon. In the Habs' last visit to Boston's TD Garden, Price made a twisting, lunging save to knock a puck out of mid-air with the paddle of his stick, denying Bruins forward Daniel Paille of what appeared to be a sure goal. There is some debate as to whether this was indeed his finest save of the season (he made an outrageous stop early in the season on Kyle Okposo of the New York Islanders, and later in the year he robbed Isles forward Matt Martin by spinning around on his belly to catch a dribbling puck just as it reached the goal line). This one came against the Bruins and helped salt away a Habs season sweep, however, so the Paille rejection gets the nod.
March 21, 2015
There have been precious few games this season where Price looked average, one of them happened in San Jose against the Sharks in early March (he gave up four goals, including one he kicked in himself). Two weeks later, San Jose visited the Bell Centre and Price avenged the defeat in spectacular fashion. With just over 90 seconds to play, the Sharks broke up the ice on a three-on-two. "I thought I had the guy on the back door and their player made a pretty good pass, as soon as it got by me I thought, 'aw, this one's in'," Montreal winger Dale Weise said. "And then Carey made a completely ridiculous save and got the shutout." He made the save with the shaft of his goal stick to preserve his career-high ninth doughnut of the season (and second in as many games). The shutout tied him with Hall of Famer Bill Durnan for fourth place on the Habs' career list.
April 8, 2015
It's not easy to set franchise records when your club has more than a century's worth of performances to draw upon. But Price did just that last Thursday when he recorded his 43rd win of the season. That's tied for sixth-highest in NHL history, it's also one better than Jacques Plante and Ken Dryden managed in their championship-studded careers. There are those who would put an asterisk next to the accomplishment given overtime wins and shootouts, but Price's august predecessors played for much stronger teams. Interestingly, he wasn't especially spectacular in the 4-3 overtime triumph against Original Six-rival Detroit. The game was decided by a softie, Lars Eller's shot squirting through Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard's pads. "You're just not going to score those on Carey Price," Weise said. The evidence from this season suggests he's right.