Carey Price set a single-season franchise record between the pipes for the Montreal Canadiens with his 43rd win of the season. The British Columbia native is in the running for the Hart and Vezina Trophies. The list of accolades goes on-and-on, but the most important goal for the netminder is simple: To win the Stanley Cup.
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Price backstopped the Canadiens to a 4-3 overtime victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday to surpass Jacques Plante on the franchise's all-time single-season wins list.
While his teammates recognized the victory with some shaving cream to the face, Price knows the chance for his biggest victories of the season comes in the playoffs next week.
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"It's definitely nice to be appreciated like that," Price said, according to NHL.com. "But at the end of the day I'm just looking forward to starting the playoffs. I'm not the guy that takes those types of awards or whatever. I'm just focused on trying to do what I need to do to stop pucks."
Price has helped guide the Canadiens to a 49-22-10 record and they currently sit atop the Atlantic Division, with a two-point cushion over the second place Tampa Bay Lightning. Montreal also has the second most points in the NHL with 108. The team hasn't won the Stanley Cup since the 1992-93 season, despite leading the NHL by hoising it 24 times.
"You want to reflect on it, but you don't want to get too caught up in looking back," Price said. "It's been working all season long, the goal-setting looking forward. I don't want to start resting on a good season yet."
Price has played himself into the conversation for the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's best backstop as well as the Hart Trophy as league MVP.
The eight-year netminder leads the entire NHL in wins (43), goals-against average (1.95), save percentage (.934) and shutouts (nine, tied).
"He deserves the Hart," coach Michel Therrien said of Price. "As far as I'm concerned he's the best player in the league right now, he's the player that's got the most impact on games. There's a lot of good players in this league that had some good seasons, but Carey Price deserves that trophy."
Price isn't the type of player to look back, but he may be looking ahead as he notices the 24 Stanley Cup banners hanging up at the Bell Centre and the 44 Hall of Famers who are enshrined by the team.
"I've been looking at them for quite a while," he said. "Obviously I have a lot of respect for what it takes to get up there and what they accomplished in their careers.
"It's definitely special playing here."
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