Carey Price‘s lower-body injury will keep him out another six weeks, minimum, the Montreal Canadiens announced Monday morning.
Price’s injury does not require surgery. The health issue stems from an incident on Oct. 29 in Edmonton, where Price stepped on a puck during warm-up.
Price started the season with a seven-game winning streak, but the Edmonton injury cost him the next 22 days of game action. The star netminder returned on Nov. 20 and posted three more W’s.
The 28-year-old was removed from his Nov. 25 victory over the New York Rangers after re-aggravating the injury.
“It was not the reason he got injured, that he came back too quick,” Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin told reporters. “We looked into it really deeply after, and that was not the case.”
Despite getting only 12 starts from the league’s reigning MVP, Montreal (18-4-3) leads the National Hockey League with 39 points.
Price (10-2-0) has recorded two shutouts and holds the third-highest save percentage this season, at .934.
Backup Mike Condon (8-2-3, .916 save percentage) has filled in nicely during Price’s absences, and third-string goaltender Dustin Tokarski has been called up to support Condon.
Bergevin said he doesn’t feel there is a need to acquire another goaltender at this time and spoke highly of 20-year-old prospect Zachary Fucale, who has a 7-2-2 record with the St. John’s IceCaps this season.
“Now, if we lose three goalies, that would be a different story,” Bergevin said, smiling.