Some weekends in hockey are bigger than the scoreboard. This was one of them. In four days, Carey Price received his Hockey Hall of Fame ring, his jacket, and his place in the Hall, then walked back into the Bell Centre to see his name go up in the Canadiens’ Ring of Honour. The Canadiens beat Toronto in the middle of it and lost to Minnesota in overtime at the end of it, and by Tuesday night nobody in Montreal cared much about the final score.
Toronto: The Ring, the Jacket and the Hall
It started in Toronto. Price received his Hockey Hall of Fame ring on Saturday, November 7th, the same night the Canadiens went into Scotiabank Arena and beat the Maple Leafs 4-2. The next night he walked to centre ice at the Leafs’ next home game, against New Jersey, to receive his Hall of Fame jacket while a video of his career played on the big screen. Leafs fans, who have spent fifteen years trying to beat him, gave him a warm welcome. That says a lot about the way the hockey world sees him. Rivals respect the goalie who made them work for every goal.
Then came Monday, November 9th, the induction itself. Price went into the Class of 2026 with Patrice Bergeron, Pekka Rinne, Keith Tkachuk, Cindy Curley, and builder Brian Burke. Shea Weber, his longtime teammate, introduced him. Later, Price said that moment was the most special part of the whole weekend. They played together in Montreal for years and trained together in Kelowna every summer. If you wanted to explain what the Price era was to a younger fan, you could do worse than a picture of those two on the same stage.
The numbers that put him there are simple. Price played 712 games, all with Montreal, and won 361 of them, the most of any goalie in Canadiens history. He finished with a .917 save percentage, a 2.51 goals-against average, and 49 shutouts. In 2014-15, he won the Hart Trophy as league MVP, the Vezina Trophy as best goalie, the Ted Lindsay Award and the Jennings Trophy, with a .933 save percentage and a 1.96 goals-against average. He won Olympic gold in 2014. And, in 2021, he carried a team that was not supposed to be there all the way to the Stanley Cup Final.
Montreal: The Night at the Bell Centre
The Canadiens saved the biggest moment for home ice. On Tuesday, November 10th, before the game against the Minnesota Wild, the team added Price to the Ring of Honour. Shea Weber unveiled the plaque. Cole Caufield, who was part of that 2021 run, spoke about what Price meant to the city. Then Price stepped out, and the building stood and cheered for about four minutes.
He spoke with his voice shaking. He told the crowd that Montreal gave him a home for fifteen years and that it was an honour to be their goalie, then finished with a heartfelt “merci beaucoup.” He also had kind words for the two young goalies in the organization, Jacob Fowler and Jakub Dobes. He said both are solid, and that Fowler has a calm about him that reminds him of his own style. Price also admitted that his career ended without a proper farewell, because the knee injury took the choice away from him. He said he felt that love anyway. The weekend left him drained, and he said he would need to get home to take it all in.
I will say this as a hockey fan. The ceremony was the right size and the right tone. For many younger fans in this building, Price is the only Canadiens goalie they ever saw, and the crowd reacted that way. The tribute deserved to be a little longer and a little bigger, in my opinion, because a goalie who gave the franchise fifteen years should get all the time the team can give him. But the emotion was real, and that is what people will remember.
The Game: A Great Hockey Night with No Loser
After all that emotion, the game itself was the best the Canadiens have played this season. Minnesota won 2-1 in overtime, but the Canadiens outshot the Wild 28-24 and had the better of the play for long stretches. After a quiet first period, with only five shots, Montreal put 23 shots on Jesper Wallstedt in the last two periods.
Wallstedt was the reason it did not end differently. He stopped 27 of 28 shots, including a big save on Lane Hutson in the first period, and the Wild were lucky to still be in it. Newhook thought he had scored in the first period, but the goal was waved off after the review. Jacob Fowler, on the other side, stopped 22 of 24 shots. He had no chance on the first Minnesota goal, which came after Josh Anderson lost control of the puck at the blue line, Brink stole it and went in alone.
The Canadiens answered late. With the goalie pulled, Nick Suzuki scored on the 6-on-5 at 18:22 of the third period, with assists from Caufield and Hutson, to send it to overtime. Then came the part nobody wanted. Caufield was penalized after his stick broke on Hughes, and on the power play Kaprizov scored just 21 seconds into overtime on a cross-ice pass from Boldy. Fowler was a little late on that shot, but you cannot blame him for it.
So the Canadiens lost, but both teams deserved a point and both got one. The fans were the real winners. A night that started with Carey Price and ended in overtime was exactly the kind of game that makes you remember why you love this team.
Should the Canadiens Retire Number 31?
That brings us to the question everyone has asked since Tuesday. Should the Canadiens raise Price’s number 31 to the rafters, even though he never won the Stanley Cup?
The team’s owner, Geoff Molson, answered this in August at a golf tournament. He said it was too early for that now and that the organization was not discussing it. He has not changed that position. When Price himself was asked on Tuesday, he said he was taking it one step at a time. So nothing is decided, and that is a good reason to look at both sides.
The Case Against
The main argument is the Cup. Every number hanging at the Bell Centre belongs to a player who won the Stanley Cup in a Canadiens uniform, and that is the standard the franchise built its history on. Montreal has 24 Stanley Cups. Fifteen numbers honouring eighteen players is a small and proud club, and putting Price in it would make him the first without a Cup. Hockey is also a team sport, and the ones who say one goalie cannot win it alone have a point. Some fans will say the Ring of Honour and the Hall of Fame are already the right honours for him, and they are real honours. Retiring a number is something else.
The Case For
Price’s side of the argument is just as strong. He holds the franchise record for wins, and he has a Hart, a Vezina, a Ted Lindsay, and an Olympic gold medal. He did all of it with teams that were often thin in front of him. As one columnist pointed out, only one Price-era player, Alexei Kovalev in 2007-08, ever reached 80 points. He took a team to the Eastern Conference Final in 2014 and to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021, playing through a knee injury that ended his career. Winning a Cup is also harder in today’s league than it was in the 1950s or 1970s, with a salary cap, more teams, and a lot more parity. Ken Dryden, who knows something about goaltending in Montreal, said a couple of years ago that it was someone else’s decision, but that he thought the answer was pretty clear.
My Take
My opinion is that the number should go up, but not tonight and not in a hurry. Molson is right that it is too early. Price just went into the Hall of Fame; he just went into the Ring of Honour, and the team should let those two honours breathe before they decide anything else. But the Cup standard was built for the stars of a different era, and when you look at what Price did, as a goalie and as the face of the team for fifteen years, you have to ask whether the rule should be the last word. One day, in a few years, I would like to see number 31 hanging next to Dryden’s 29 and Roy’s 33. If the Canadiens decide against it, I will understand, because their tradition matters. But for me, Carey Price earned his place there.
What do you think? Should the Canadiens retire Carey Price’s number even though he never won the Stanley Cup?