Five or ten years ago, it might have been a headline that would have had San Jose Sharks fans falling all over themselves, but today, it’s barely a blip on the radar. The Sharks have traded with the Montreal Canadiens, taking goaltender Carey Price and a fifth-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft for defenseman Gannon Laroque.
The trade is no surprise. The Canadiens needed to dump salary. The Sharks were pretty clearly the top contenders to offer up the cap space. In order to sweeten the deal, the Canadiens handed over the fifth-round pick and took a contract the other way to help keep San Jose below the 50-contract mark that all NHL teams have to adhere to.
Will Price play for the Sharks?
Fans might wonder that if, by some miracle, Price might play for the Sharks.
The answer is no.
Price has not played since 2022 when he injured his knee and if there was any likelihood that he could play, he would have done it already. In March, he told LHN.com that he would have loved to play in the Four Nations Faceoff in Montreal.
“I would have loved to have played a game on the international stage in Montreal,” Price said then. “I always wore the Canadian colors with great pride. A game at Bell Centre with my Canadian teammates would have been the memory of a lifetime. The stage for that game was huge. When you’re no longer playing, you miss the energy and the nerves before a big game. It’s an adrenaline rush.
“The combination of a game in Montreal with a Team Canada game, it made me feel a lot of emotions. But I was happy to participate as a fan. For my part, I always knew that my career would come to an end because of health reasons or because I was told I wasn’t good enough anymore. I’d like to think that I finally stopped because my body just couldn’t keep up anymore. I like that better. I’m still a proud athlete. I would’ve found it tough to find myself out of the NHL because I no longer had the talent to keep up.”
How much are the Sharks paying Carey Price?
Even though Price’s cap hit is $10.5 million for this season, the amount of money that the Sharks have to pay out of pocket is much less than that, which is why this deal took so long to happen. The Canadiens knew that the team would have to wait until after Price’s final bonus was paid before moving the 38-year-old goaltender’s contract because it would be more likely that teams would take it.
Price was due a $5.5 million bonus on Sept. 1. Once that was paid, his actual contract only totals out to $2 million. So that’s what the Sharks will pay Price this season.
Price’s contract expires at the end of this season, so the Sharks are only on the hook for this one year.
What did the Sharks lose in Gannon Laroque?
As for Laroque, San Jose had high hopes that the team had found a diamond in the rough when it drafted Laroque 203rd overall in 2021. However, surgery on his hips in 2022, set back his development and it took Laroque time to find his form. The defenseman missed out on a key year of development and was never truly able to use his big body to influence the game at the AHL level.
While Laroque was 24th on our Top 25 Under 25 list in 2023, he fell to the Honorable Mentions in 2024 and missed the list entirely this season.
Laroque only played 18 games last season, 9 with the Barracuda and 9 with the Wichita Thunder in the ECHL.
