Carey Price helps Canadiens tie franchise record in his first game back.

The Montreal Canadiens, their fans, and no doubt Carey Price himself were likely hoping to pick up a win for his big return on Friday night but unfortunately for them the Canadiens fell well short of that goal, getting shut out by a score of 3 - 0 at home in the Bell Center against the New York Islanders.

While his numbers on the night might suggest that he had a pretty mediocre outing, he recorded a 2.04 goals against average and a .895 save percentage, Price actually looked pretty solid and was left out to dry by his teammates on a few occasions including a clean 3 man breakaway for the Islanders in the opening minutes of the game's third period.

As you can see from this shot of the play, the Canadiens didn't exactly play stellar defense on this occasion and they certainly did not give their star goaltender an easy welcome back to the National Hockey League.

As it would turn out though the Canadiens and Carey Price were actually setting a franchise record, or at least tying one, just by simply having Price in the game at all. By suiting up for his first game of the 2021 - 2022 regular season, Price became the 46th player to suit up for the Canadiens this season. That number is good enough to equal the franchise record which was set all the way back during the 2000 - 2001 season.

In theory it is a record that the Canadiens could potentially beat this season with several games still remaining on their schedule, although I suspect this isn't the kind of record that a team would waste any time on trying to break. Should the Canadiens suffer any more injuries than they already have or should a need to replace players for any number of reasons arise however is it still possible to see the Canadiens beat the record this season, which would at least make it memorable in one regard for the Canadiens.

So in spite of the loss Price takes home a small piece of Canadiens history, and of course the wonderful feelings he must be carrying around with him after that incredible reception he received from the Canadiens home crowd.