What Carey Price Needs to Do to Eclipse Patrick Roy in the NHL History Books

Carey Price is a superb athlete. Already widely acknowledged as one of the NHL's elite goalies, his Hart Trophy win in 2014-15 established him as the best stopper in the game today. That standing was only reinforced when an injury he suffered last season led directly to the implosion of his Montreal Canadiens.

Thus, when saying that Patrick Roy's career accomplishments at the same age tower over those of Price, that isn't a criticism of Montreal's current starter. It's just a measure of how formidable Roy was.

Price is now 29 years old and in his 10th full NHL campaign. The following is a list of individual and team accolades that Roy had collected at the same age at the end of his 10th season in the NHL:

• four-time NHL leader in save percentage
• three-time Vezina Trophy winner (best goalie, as voted by NHL general managers)
• three-time first-team All-Star (best goalie, as voted by the Professional Hockey Writers Association)
• three-time William M. Jennings Trophy winner (team with the fewest goals allowed)
• two-time second-team All-Star (second-best goalie, as voted by the PHWA)
• two-time Conn Smythe Trophy winner (playoff MVP, as voted by the PHWA)
• two-time Stanley Cup champion

David Zalubowski/Associated Press

Five times in a row, Roy was named either the best or second-best goalie in the game of hockey—a legendary stretch which compares favourably to just about any goalie in history. He bookmarked that five-year run with a pair of championships in which he was named the most valuable player in the playoffs. If Roy's career had ended in the summer of 1994, he would already have been a Hall of Famer—a second coming of Ken Dryden.

Compared to Roy's accomplishments, Price's own achievements seem somewhat mundane.

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Price did capture the Hart Trophy, something Roy never managed, but he has only been named to the year-end All-Star team once in his career. He hasn't come close to the same lengthy stretch of dominance over his peers that Roy managed in his prime.

Price also hasn’t been able to backstop the Canadiens to a Stanley Cup, and at this point in his career, there's virtually no chance of him surpassing Roy's playoff reputation. Dynasties are a rare thing in the modern NHL, and the combination of four championships and three MVP nods required for Price to equal Roy's career totals seems out of reach.

The regular season may be a different story, though.

Roy's furious departure from the Habs is the stuff of legend and rightfully casts a long shadow over then-head coach Mario Tremblay's hockey career, but with the benefit of hindsight, we can say he was already past his prime then. Roy would be an exceptional starter with the Colorado Avalanche and win two more Stanley Cups, but he would never again tower over his peers during the regular season the way he did in Montreal.

Roy won his last Vezina at the age of 26, but many NHL goalies continue to contend for such awards later in their careers. Martin Brodeur won his first Vezina at 30 and would eventually get his name on the trophy four times. Tim Thomas won at 34 and 36. Dominik Hasek collected the award six times between the ages of 29 and 36.

Not only is Roy's trophy case assailable, but so are his regular-season statistics.

Player	Games	Wins
Martin Brodeur	592	324
Patrick Roy	529	277
Carey Price	484	255

Roy and Brodeur are the only goalies in NHL history to appear in at least 1,000 regular-season games and record at least 500 wins, but Price has a decent shot at joining that club.

Price has played 37 of his team's 50 games. If he plays the same portion of his team's remaining schedule and keeps winning contests at the rate he has so far this year, he'll conclude 2016-17 with 508 games played and 269 wins. That will put him right on the heels of Roy at the same age.

If Price can stay healthy and hold down the starting job for another decade, his all-time wins and games played should surpass those of Roy, who retired at age 37 while still capable of playing NHL minutes. As a side point, Brodeur is already well out of reach, particularly since he spent a half-decade padding his totals, even after he'd stopped being a good starting goalie.

To rival Roy's reputation, though, Price will need to be at the top of his game. Brodeur's best five-year stretch in the estimation of awards voters came between the ages of 30 and 35, when he was a first- or second-team All-Star every year. That run will be tough to replicate in an era when voters put more emphasis on save percentage than they used to; Brodeur managed to get himself named best goalie four times without ever leading the NHL in that stat.

It's likely that, when Price retires, he'll come up somewhere short of Roy. An elite five-year stretch and 10 seasons as a quality starting goalie would go a long way toward equaling the regular-season divide. Matching Roy's playoff achievements would be much tougher, requiring a Montreal dynasty starting almost right away.

All statistics courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report.