In 2005, the Montreal Canadiens went for Carey Price at the 5th place of this Entry Draft. The Red, White, and Blue preferred the great Carey to the great Anze Kopitar. This was a great decision, but the club's big mistake was to build around number 31.
As Maxim Lapierre wisely pointed out on 98.5 Sports, the Habs have a whole bunch of weaknesses that have never been corrected because of Carey Price's prowess. The bottom line is that the club is not ready for the post-Carey Price era.
"Forget (Samuel) Montembeault, forget (Jake) Allen, forget (Cayden) Primeau: we're realizing that the day Carey Price is going to say 'bye,' we're not ready right now. We're really not ready.
Who's going to be number one and number two after him? We're going to have to start thinking about that. An aging goalie like that, at some point, it's going to take a replacement and I'm not sure we have that right now," said Lapierre.
Like "Lappy", I think if Carey comes back and still holds his own in front of the cage, the problem will be pushed back again because the organization might think, "We're going to be okay again next year since Carey still has gas in the tank".
In short, choosing Carey in 2005 was a wise choice, but building everything around him was a monumental blunder by this franchise.
