Montreal adds Carey Price to Ring of Honor after Hockey Hall of Fame induction

Carey Price returned to the Bell Centre on 10 November 2026 to receive the honour that the Montreal Canadiens reserve for members of their organisation inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Price had entered the Hall in Toronto the previous evening. In Montreal, former teammate Shea Weber added his name to the club’s Ring of Honor before the Canadiens played Minnesota. The Canadian Press reported that the applause and chants lasted close to four minutes. Price was the 62nd member of the organisation to enter the Hall.

Minnesota won the game 2–1 in overtime. The result gave Montreal a point, and its current rookie goaltender, Jacob Fowler, finished with 22 saves. The pairing of the ceremony and the game offered a rare chance to see two very different measures of the position on the same night. One concerns an entire career and the number of times a club could turn to the same player. The other concerns what two young goaltenders can do in a tight game when one rebound, one turnover or one penalty can decide the result.

What the Ring of Honor recognises

The Hall of Fame inducted Price in the player category. Montreal’s Ring of Honor is the club’s own record of its connections to the Hall, with names displayed near the arena rafters. The most recent additions before Price included Weber in 2024, Pierre Turgeon in 2023 and Guy Carbonneau in 2019. Weber’s involvement on Tuesday linked two consecutive honourees who had also shared a dressing room. The Canadiens had announced a tribute video and a plaque unveiling as part of the ceremony, giving supporters at the arena their own occasion after the formal induction in Toronto.

Montreal’s goaltending history gives the recognition particular weight. The Hall’s profile places Price in a line that includes Georges Vezina, George Hainsworth, Jacques Plante, Ken Dryden and Patrick Roy. Their careers spanned different scoring environments, equipment and schedules. The franchise’s career record book offers one way to place Price in that company. He played 712 regular-season games and won 361, both records among Canadiens goaltenders. He passed Plante for the wins record in March 2019 and finished 47 victories clear of him. Price also started 700 games and recorded 49 shutouts, third in club history behind Hainsworth and Plante.

Each of those figures describes a different part of the work. Wins reflect what the whole team achieved in front of the goalie, while starts tell us how frequently the club chose to rely on him. The 49 shutouts preserve the record of nights on which he and the skaters held an opponent scoreless. His .917 save percentage and 2.51 goals-against average describe the full regular-season span, including seasons when the Canadiens were far from contention. Taken together, the figures explain why the Montreal tribute was built around the length of his service as well as the heights of his best year.

The long route to Montreal

Price grew up in Anahim Lake, British Columbia, far from the facilities that would allow him to play regularly at the next level. The Hall’s account describes a round trip of roughly ten hours to Williams Lake. His father, Jerry, eventually bought a small plane to make the journeys for hockey. The Canadian Press also reported the flying trips in its account of Tuesday’s ceremony. Price is a member of the Ulkatcho First Nation, and the Hall lists the Indspire Sports Award he received in 2016 among the recognitions of his career. The travel and the family effort were part of the path that eventually took him to major junior hockey.

Price debuted with the Tri-City Americans in the Western Hockey League at 15. Montreal drafted him fifth overall in 2005, while he was still developing in junior hockey. His 2006–07 season brought goaltender-of-the-year awards from both the WHL and the Canadian Hockey League. That same year he helped Canada win the world junior title and then joined the Hamilton Bulldogs, who won the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup. The sequence placed a teenager in three distinct settings: a major junior club, a short international tournament and a professional postseason. He arrived in Montreal for the 2007–08 season with experience in all three.

At the world juniors, Team Canada’s Olympic committee records six starts and six wins for Price, including two shutouts. He was named the tournament’s most valuable player and best goaltender. The Calder Cup run that followed adds a separate piece of evidence to the story of his development. Canada was assembling a national age-group squad for a tournament with limited time to establish its rhythm. Hamilton was a professional club playing through successive playoff rounds. When Montreal brought him into the NHL the following season, his record already included meaningful games in two formats that test preparation and recovery in different ways.

A season that can be read through four trophies

Price’s 2014–15 season produced 44 wins in 66 games, a .933 save percentage, a 1.96 goals-against average and nine shutouts. The 44 wins show the scale of the contribution across a long schedule. The save percentage measures the proportion of shots on goal he stopped, while the goals-against average puts the rate of scoring on a standard 60-minute basis. Using all three helps distinguish a goalie who was consistently available from one who posted an impressive rate in a small run of starts.

The four trophies the Hall lists for that year describe different judgments. The Vezina recognised the league’s leading goaltender. The Hart named him the player judged most valuable to his team, an award open to skaters as well. His peers chose him for the Ted Lindsay Award. He shared the William M. Jennings Trophy with Corey Crawford under an award tied to team goals allowed. Seeing the awards together is useful because the same year was recognised through an assessment of the position, a broader view of player value, a vote by players and a team defensive result.

A year earlier, Canada had won Olympic gold at Sochi with Price in goal. In the final against Sweden he stopped all 24 shots in a 3–0 victory, according to the Canadian Olympic Committee. Jonathan Toews, Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz scored. Canada’s report describes a team that controlled possession for much of the game. That detail gives the shutout context. The goalie’s job in such a final includes staying ready across stretches when his team has the puck. The 2014 final and the following NHL season show how much the demands of the same position can vary between a single medal game and 66 regular-season appearances.

Price added another senior international title at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, according to the Hall of Fame. That came after Canada had already named him its athlete of the year for 2015, an award that placed his NHL season in a wider sporting context. Those distinctions have separate places in his record. The World Cup belongs to the results of a national team, while the 2015 award recognised an individual across sports. In Montreal, where he spent his entire NHL career, both were part of the body of work supporters had watched him build.

What the 2021 playoff run adds to the record

Montreal’s run to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final provides a different test of Price’s career from his award season. The Canadiens fell 3–1 behind Toronto in the opening round, won three straight and took Game 7 by a score of 3–1. Price made 30 saves in that game. Montreal then swept Winnipeg and eliminated Vegas in six. Price stopped 37 shots in the semifinal clincher before Artturi Lehkonen’s overtime goal sent the Canadiens to their first final since 1993. Across the entire 2021 postseason, he played 22 games with a .924 save percentage.

Tampa Bay defeated Montreal in five games, finishing the final with a 1–0 win. That outcome belongs alongside the saves and series victories when evaluating the run. Montreal repeatedly kept elimination games and close series within reach, then met an opponent that could win the deciding game on a single goal. Price’s playoff record shows the level he sustained, while the result of the final shows the limit of what one position can determine. That distinction matters in a league where a championship is shared by a full roster and a goaltender can have an outsized effect on how far it advances.

Two young goaltenders take the ice

After the ceremony, Jesper Wallstedt stopped 27 shots for Minnesota. Bobby Brink opened the scoring on a third-period breakaway, and Nick Suzuki tied the game with 1:38 remaining in regulation. Cole Caufield took a penalty late in the third, leaving Minnesota with a four-on-three advantage to start overtime. Kirill Kaprizov scored on a one-timer from the right circle. Minnesota extended its point streak to nine games and Montreal extended its own to 11. The NHL and the Canadiens agreed on the sequence that decided the game, with Minnesota converting the advantage after Suzuki had earned the hosts a chance in overtime.

Fowler had already been named the NHL’s October rookie of the month. On Tuesday, he and Wallstedt took a scoreless game into the third period, leaving both teams one successful attack away from the lead. The contrast between the two Minnesota goals illustrates what a close contest can ask of a goaltender. Brink advanced alone after gaining possession in open ice. Kaprizov shot immediately after receiving the puck during a power play, when the defending unit had one fewer skater to cover a passing lane. Those sequences called for different reads even though both ended in the same net.

The Canadiens’ schedule now takes them to Boston on Thursday, with a point in each of their last 11 games. Fowler’s October award and Tuesday’s work give Montreal useful evidence about the player it has today. Price’s plaque records something that took 15 NHL seasons with the club to establish. That is the enduring significance of the evening at the Bell Centre. Supporters had time to recognise the years in which Price carried the position before watching another pair of goaltenders go about earning trust, one game at a time.

Sources · The Canadian Press via Global News · Hockey Hall of Fame · NHL career records and Ring of Honor · Montreal’s ceremony announcement · Canadian Olympic Committee career profile · Sochi 2014 final · Toronto series decider · Vegas series decider · Montreal’s 2021 playoff path · 2021 Stanley Cup Final · Career and playoff statistics · NHL game recap · Montreal game recap