Carey Price could be traded in a three-team deal, according to Trege Wilson

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Jeff Drouin
August 16, 2022 (7:46 PM)

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The possibility of trading Jake Allen is looking more and more real, as the demand for the Habs goalie is currently high.

His name would be circulating more and more in the NHL:

There is another possible opportunity that could present itself to Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton in a few weeks.

Carey Price, who celebrates his 35th birthday today, could be the one to help a team like the Vegas Golden Knights, who just lost Robin Lehner for the entire 2022-23 season.

According to Stéphane Waite, Carey's primary goal is to win a Stanley Cup. It is absolutely essential for him.

Price wants to stay in Montreal, he loves the city and the fans and he wants to win in Montreal. But, time is running out for him and it seems that he would be open to changing his address, if it is to give him a better chance to reach his first goal and win a championship.

In short, for many reasons, many observers believe that it would be interesting to trade Carey Price to another team, and not Jake Allen (if #31 is back healthy, remember).

On the other hand, with the persistent uncertainty about his health, with his annual salary of 10.5 million dollars (for four more seasons), other organizations are uncertain about taking the gamble and that's why they are targeting Allen.

On the other hand, if Price comes back strong this season, that could change, especially if Kent Hughes goes the three-team trade route.

Indeed, according to Trege Wilson, who covers the CH for The Hockey Writers and Habs Unfiltered, that's possibly the way to go for the Habs general manager if he wants to trade his franchise goalie: the three-team trade.

That's what Wilson mentioned, on today's episode of Tony Marinaro's Sick Podcast. He believes Price could possibly be traded in a three-team deal. An interesting suggestion:

He explains that, right now, the only destination that would make any sense for a (two-team) trade involving Carey is Dallas.

Why? Simply because they have a very young goalie (Jake Oettinger) who doesn't seem to be on track to agree to a new contract with them anytime soon.

Personally, I don't see Dallas as a logical destination for Price, but hey.

THREE-TEAM DEALS

Felix Forget (DansLesCoulisses.com) does a great job of explaining what this option could look like.

"I'll use the example of the trade that brought David Savard to Tampa Bay in 2020-21. At the time, Savard was a member of the Blue Jackets and the Lightning didn't have the money to accommodate his salary or even 50% of it.
To make it happen, then, the Blue Jackets sent Savard (withholding 50% of his salary) to the Red Wings in return for Brian Lashoff. Then, immediately thereafter, the Red Wings traded Savard to the Lightning (withholding 50% of his salary that was already withheld at 50% by the Blue Jackets, so the Red Wings withheld the equivalent of 25% of the salary) for Tampa Bay to get Savard at 25% of his salary."

So, in Price's case, if we explore the route of this famous three-team deal, Kent Hughes could trade him to a team like the Arizona Coyotes, withholding 50% ($5.25M) of his salary, and then the Coyotes could trade him to a club like the Vegas Golden Knights, and they too would withhold 50% of the remaining salary (so $2.625M).

Thus, the team that would acquire Price (in the end) would have him for a modest $2.625M per year.

Now, it becomes much more interesting for them to take the risk and pay the big price to get Carey.

Do you like the idea?

Let's remember the big problem of this scenario: the CH will have to pay half of the salary of number 31, for the next four seasons ($5.25 million). It's better than 10.5 million, but it all depends on the return in my opinion.

For all that, Price will obviously have to start the year and prove that he is back, but it could become an interesting option.

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