Team Canada GM Doug Armstrong appears to have selected two goalies for the Beijing Olympics

The life of an NHLer can get pretty hectic, and understandably so.. but the last year in the life of Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price have been an absolute whirlwind, culminating in a leave from the team and a stint in the NHL's player assistance program to get his mind and his body right.

First came a condensed season full of ups and downs before his team had qualified for the postseason, followed by a lengthy run to the Stanley Cup Finals, running through the Leafs, Jets and Golden Knights before falling to the eventual Cup champs, the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Next came the expansion draft, in which Price had been left exposed so that the Habs could protect backup Jake Allen. The theory there was that Price and his $10.5M per season would be too rich for the blood of Seattle Kraken GM Ron Francis, which is essentially what happened.

Following the expansion draft, Price then had to endure knee surgery and recovery, which, in hindsight, is likely the straw that broke the camel's back.


With Price recently coming out of the player assistance program, he appears to be working his way toward a return to the Habs' lineup - but according to Team Canada GM Doug Armstrong, that's not all that may await him.

Per Armstrong, Price was his number one from the word "go" - that is, if the 34-year-old can get himself back to form and if he decides that he'd like to go to the Olympics.

"Now there's things that are so much more important than playing hockey and he's going through some of those things right now, and if he gets his game up and wants to come and he's playing to that level, he'll be the guy again," Armstrong said.

If Price elects to sit this one out, Armstrong appears to have a guy in mind as the next man up.. a guy he knows pretty well. St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington, with whom he recently won a Stanley Cup.

"The good thing is the guy who won [the Stanley Cup] before [Andrei Vasilevskiy] is a Canadian and the really good thing was, for me, [that it was] Jordan Binnington. So [for] my day job it's good to have Binner with us, and he's played well this season too," Armstrong said during a weekend interview with CBC Sports.

The Blues GM has other options available to him, such as reigning Vezina Trophy winner Marc-Andre Fleury and young Flyers goaltender Carter Hart, but with Fleury not playing well on a struggling Chicago Blackhawks team this season and with Hart having struggled mightily last season before finally putting it together this year, combined with the fact that Hart has a pretty limited sample size at the NHL level, it's looking more and more likely that Price and Binnington is the preferred duo for Armstrong, with that third spot yet to be decided.