‘Young kid, pretty bad skater at the time:’ Canadiens’ Kreider on 2014 collision with Price

Chris Kreider says there wasn’t any hesitation he felt from the Montreal Canadiens to sign him ahead of the 2026-27 season, despite his most infamous run-in with the Habs being a collision in the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs with then-goaltender Carey Price.

While some fans have voiced frustrations about signing the player who ran into the legendary backstop to a one-year, $2.15 million contract for the season, the player himself takes the blame as a “young” player who was a “pretty bad skater at the time.”

“No, not from them, not on my part,” Kreider said of whether there was any hesitation in his negotiations with the Canadiens. “What happened in the past happened… It was not intentional in any way. I was just a young kid and a pretty bad skater at the time, trying to score, and things happened. So it’s hockey, it’s fast, but we move on and are happy to be here.”

Kreider joins the Canadiens after leaving the Anaheim Ducks, where he scored 22 goals and 28 assists for 50 points in 75 games last season, returning to the Eastern Conference after spending parts of 13 seasons with the New York Rangers. Joining Montreal, he brings veteran poise, a scoring touch, and an injection into a forward group hoping to push two steps further than the run to the Eastern Conference final in 205-26.

“Montreal was pretty aggressive right out of the gate,” Kreider added. “There are several connections to my time spent in New York. So there’s a familiarity there. I think that’s certainly helped as well.

“And I think just everything that they’re doing here and have been doing for a few years now, the culture that they’ve built, the group that they have, obviously it’s a pretty big hockey city, the passion… I’m trying to explain to some of my friends that it’s not just a sport here; it’s a religion.”

While it may take a while for Montreal fans to get used to seeing Kreider in their colors, there aren’t any concerns from his side about his past with Price or about joining a team led by his former Rangers teammate, Martin St. Louis.

“The intensity, the tenacity, and just the things that he brought to the rink every day,” Kreider said of that time in his early career, when St. Louis acted as a pseudo player-coach in New York. “I don’t think that I can say that I’ve learned more from any one individual than the time that I spent playing with him on his line.”

Kreider could make his Canadiens preseason debut as soon as Sept. 19, when Montreal plays split-squad games against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The team’s regular season opener is set for Sept. 29 against the same original six rivals.