When the Montreal Canadiens stepped up to the podium at the 2005 NHL Draft and selected Carey Price fifth overall, not everyone loved it.

Actually, that’s putting it lightly.

The pick shocked people. Montreal already had goalies in the system. They had other needs. They were picking inside the top five, and names like Anze Kopitar and Marc Staal were still sitting there. To some, taking a goalie that high felt risky. To others, it felt flat-out wrong.

Pierre McGuire, working the draft for TSN, became one of the loudest voices attached to the moment. Years later, he explained that he believed Montreal needed “a centreman or a defenceman with size.” At the time, that was the argument. The Canadiens needed help elsewhere. They didn’t need another goalie.

Almost two decades later, that take has aged about as badly as any draft-day take possibly could.

Carey Price is officially a Hockey Hall of Famer.

And not just because he played a long time. Not just because he wore a famous jersey. Not just because Montreal fans loved him.

He is going in because, for a long stretch of his career, Carey Price was the standard.

From Question Mark To Franchise Pillar

Price arrived in Montreal with pressure before he ever played an NHL game.

Being drafted by the Canadiens is already heavy. Being drafted fifth overall as a goalie is heavier. Being drafted by the Canadiens as the goalie who was supposed to eventually stabilize the crease after years of post-Patrick Roy chaos? That’s something else entirely.

But that was Price’s gift. He never looked like the moment was too big.

Olaf Kolzig, who knew Price from his Tri-City days, once said Price had “the perfect demeanour for a goaltender.” That might be the best way to describe him. Calm. Still. Unshaken. Almost impossible to read.

Montreal is not an easy place to play goal. Every bad goal becomes a radio segment. Every slump becomes a referendum. Every playoff loss becomes a city-wide debate. But Price never seemed built like everyone else. He did not sell panic. He did not chase noise. He looked the same after a routine save as he did after robbing someone point blank.

That became his trademark.

Carey Price made chaos look quiet.

The 2014-15 Season That Put Him Above Everyone

If there was one season that truly turned Price from elite goalie into hockey legend, it was 2014-15.

That year, he did something goalies almost never do anymore: he controlled the entire league.

Price won the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP. He won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie. He won the Ted Lindsay Award, voted by the players. He also shared the William M. Jennings Trophy.

That was not just a good season. That was one of the most dominant goaltending seasons in modern NHL history.

There are years where a goalie is great. There are years where a goalie steals games. Then there are years where a goalie changes how everyone talks about a team.

That was Price.

Montreal was dangerous because he was there. Players played differently in front of him. Opponents shot differently against him. Fans believed every night could be stolen because, honestly, it could.

When people say Price was the best goalie in the world, that season is the main exhibit.

He Won Almost Everywhere But The One Place Everyone Mentions

The lazy argument against Price was always the same.

No Stanley Cup.

And yes, it is true. Carey Price never lifted the Cup. But judging his career only through that lens completely misses what he actually did.

He won Olympic gold with Canada in 2014. He won the World Cup of Hockey in 2016. He won World Junior gold in 2007. He won the AHL’s Calder Cup with Hamilton and was playoff MVP before becoming a full-time NHL star.

At almost every level, Price won.

And in 2021, he came as close as he ever would in Montreal.

That Canadiens run to the Stanley Cup Final was not supposed to happen. Montreal was not the most talented team. They were not the deepest team. They were not the favourite. But they had Price.

Against Toronto, Winnipeg and Vegas, he gave the Canadiens belief. That run became one of the great late-career chapters for both Price and Shea Weber. Two respected Canadian hockey warriors, carrying a battered team deeper than almost anyone expected.

They fell short against Tampa Bay, but that playoff run still added to Price’s legacy. It reminded everyone what he was when healthy and locked in.

He could still take over a series.

The Respect Was Always Bigger Than The Numbers

Price finishes his NHL career as the winningest goaltender in Canadiens history. He played 712 games for Montreal, won 361 of them, posted a .917 save percentage, and recorded 49 shutouts.

Those numbers are Hall of Fame numbers.

But with Price, the respect always went beyond the stat sheet.

Teammates trusted him. Coaches leaned on him. Fans saw him as the backbone of the franchise. Even rivals understood what he meant.

Brendan Gallagher once said Price’s No. 31 should hang from the Bell Centre rafters someday. That feeling is not rare in Montreal. For a lot of Canadiens fans, it is not a debate. It is only a matter of when.

And Price himself, after getting the Hall call, summed up the journey perfectly: “Hockey has taught me a lot of life lessons, especially persistence and never giving up.”

That is the Carey Price story.

Persistence. Pressure. Pain. Greatness. And never giving up.

The Draft Take That Became Part Of The Legend

That is why the 2005 draft reaction matters today.

Not because Pierre McGuire was alone. He wasn’t. A lot of people questioned the pick.

But because the moment has become part of the legend.

Montreal saw something others did not. They saw the calm. They saw the frame. They saw the upside. They saw the possibility that this kid from Anahim Lake, B.C., could become the next great Canadiens goalie.

They were right.

The pick that some people called wrong became one of the most important picks the Canadiens have made in the modern era.

Price did not just prove critics wrong. He made the criticism look ridiculous.

A Hall Of Fame Ending

Today, Carey Price gets the final word.

The kid who was supposedly not the right fit for Montreal became the face of Montreal.

The goalie some thought the Canadiens did not need became the player they could not imagine living without.

The draft pick that drew criticism became a franchise icon, an Olympic champion, a Hart Trophy winner, a Vezina winner, a Masterton winner, and now, officially, a Hockey Hall of Famer.

Carey Price never needed to be loud to be legendary.

He just needed the crease.

And today, the hockey world finally made it official.