5 NHL players who’d really like a do-over for the 2017-18 season
By Paul Grant
As the NHL season winds down, many players are wishing they could get a re-do. Here are five of them.
The 2017-18 NHL season was a clean slate for so many big players. Heck, everyone is a Hart Memorial Trophy candidate in October.
But then the reality of travel, injuries and a team not as good as you thought brings you down to earth. The best start to separate from the rest and before you know it, your team is mathematically eliminated from the postseason.
With that in mind, here are five players who would love to rewind and start their season again.
5. Carey Price
Poor Carey Price. Dude signs a monster eight-year contract extension in the offseason designed to keep him the property of the pressure cooker of the Montreal Canadiens for the rest of his NHL career. And, cool as a cucumber, the 30-year-old goaltender seemed to embrace it and looked on course to have another MVP-caliber season. After all, he wasn’t coming off being a workhorse at the World Cup of Hockey, he seemingly had shaken the injury bug that he could not exterminate last season and, frankly, the Canadiens — despite being Atlantic Division champs — didn’t go all that far into the playoffs last year, thanks to the New York Rangers. So Price was relatively rested and recovered, and all looked good.
That is, until injuries returned — most seriously, a concussion in February — and the revelation he had a woeful and dysfunctional (and Shea Weber-less) bunch playing in front of him rained on Price’s Stanley Cup parade. As a result, he has less than 20 wins, his save percentage is threatening .900 and his goals-against average is above 3.00. Who are you and what have you done with Carey Price?