Feb 10, 2017
Post 2 Post: The Five Hole
The best goaltender in the world looks leaky these days, as Montreal's Carey Price has allowed 18 goals over his last six games.
The best goaltender in the world looks leaky these days, as Montreal's Carey Price has allowed 18 goals over his last six games.
The Canadiens have struggled hard going into Thursday's game against the Arizona Coyotes, but we can't just point the finger at Carey.
Let's break the five games before their stop in Arizona down into three categories, as seen in the video:
There's four "soft goals," with two in particular as "must haves."
Price was late reacting to Matt Read's shot on the blocker side against the Philadelphia Flyers. And he can't allow Antti Rantanen's softie through the body, either.
Moving on to Category 2 - "screens from his own players," and there are seven goals can be classified as that.
The sight lines with his defencemen have to be adjusted, while taking a new angle when trying to block shots.
So when the system is working right, Price sees the puck. And I would say he saves around half of those and that total shrinks again.
Then there's the third category of "not his fault." The remaining goals fall here - a 5-on-3 cross ice one-timer and a couple of unstoppable tip-ins.
The bottom line is that there's nothing technically wrong with Carey Price's game. A tweak here and there and instead of giving up 14 in five games going into the game against Arizona, that number could easily be a lot lower - meaning a goals-against average of 1.80.
And that's where it normally is when he's at his best - dominating the league.