Carey Price is eight pounds lighter, and one training change says everything about a comeback
Carey Price is eight pounds lighter and has dropped the leg training goaltending demanded. Dave Stubbs reports the Kelowna details that close the comeback door.
Carey Price told NHL.com he is eight pounds lighter than his Montreal Canadiens playing weight, and that number explains more than any quote does.
Price spoke with Dave Stubbs from his home in Kelowna, British Columbia, on August 10. He is now on the ice three times a week, and never in goal.
Wednesday and Friday mornings, plus the Thursday Night Hockey League, a fast game among former NHL, European pro and college players. He has not put pads on once since April 29, 2022.
"Price plays as a forward in a beer league."
The detail underneath all of it is the training change.
Price said the heavy leg work that built goaltending mass is no longer part of what he does.
That is not a man resting a knee between comeback attempts. That is a man who deliberately took apart the body the position demanded.
The knee still keeps a schedule
Price still does physical therapy and still trains. By Friday, he said, the knee usually tells him to take a few days off, and sometimes it swells.
So the limit is not desire and it is not conditioning. It is torque, and the crease is where torque lives.
He can be careful out there now, in a game he controls. Goaltending never offered that.
What Kelowna says about the rest of the league
Price turns 39 on August 16 and enters the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 9. He was traded to the San Jose Sharks last September in a salary-cap move, and reported for his physical anyway.
There he asked San Jose general manager Mike Grier whether the team needed a left winger. Grier said probably not.
The joke lands because it is directionally honest. Price is not angling back toward the crease, he is angling away from it.
That matters to every team paying a goalie into his mid-30s.
Price is the clearest public evidence that the athlete outlasts the position, and that the body a goalie builds is the first thing he gives up to keep playing at all.
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