Canadiens trade Carey Price’s contract to Sharks

Carey Price’s time as a Montreal Canadien has officially come to an end.

While the Hart and Vezina-winning goaltender hasn’t played an NHL game since a five-game stint at the end of the 2021-22 season, and has shown no signs of returning to action amidst injury problems, he is now no longer on the Habs’ salary books, as the team has traded Price’s contract to the San Jose Sharks, along with a 2026 fifth-round pick, in exchange for defenseman Gannon Laroque.

Price is in the final year of his eight-year contract with a $10.5 million cap hit. While he’s spent more than half of that contract on long-term injured reserve and not counting against Montreal’s salary cap, there was a greater need for the team to move the contract this season. However, he had to be paid a $5.5 million signing bonus on Monday, and is now only owed $2 million in actual money, which is why the trade did not happen earlier in the summer.

One of the primary reasons Price needed to be moved was due to the Canadiens’ interest in adding another forward to their roster. Since teams are only allowed to be 10% over the salary cap on the first day of the regular season if they have players on LTIR, the Canadiens needed at least $950,000 in salary cap space freed up to account for that, meaning any forward they were looking to acquire could have a cap hit of at most $3,618,333.

On top of that, Price’s contract would have affected the Canadiens ability to accrue cap space during the season to have more space by the trade deadline. It also could have gotten in the way of performance bonuses paid out to players on entry-level contracts like Lane Hutson and Ivan Demidov, potentially causing some of those to carry over and take away from their salary cap space in 2026-27, when they’ll be looking to be even more competitive and will need every dollar they can get.

As for the Sharks, taking on Price’s contract not only gives them a draft pick, but it also allows them to be well over the salary floor of $70.6 million for the season. While they were still at around $75.76 million without the contract, this keeps them farther away from that floor, something that will come in handy if they look to offload some contracts for assets during the season.

Price finishes his Habs career with a 361-261-79 record, a .917 save percentage and 49 shutouts in 712 games with Montreal, as well as a 43-45 record, a .919 SV% and eight shutouts in 92 playoff games. While he never won the Stanley Cup, he carried the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021 before they lost in five games to the Tampa Bay Lightning. He also won the Hart, Vezina and William M. Jennings trophies, as well as the Ted Lindsay Award, in 2014-15, and won the Bill Masteron Trophy in 2021-22.

Laroque was a fourth-round pick by the Sharks in 2021, and spent his 2024-25 season split between the AHL and the ECHL. He had one goal and one assist for two points in nine AHL games with the San Jose Barracuda, and two assists in nine ECHL games with the Wichita Thunder.