The load-out

The young goaltender was one of the first to face the cameras, notebooks and microphones today. Wearing a black Harley-Davidson cap and the ensemble du jour, tee and jeans, Price talked about his immediate plans to get away from hockey. He and some friends are going to Cancun after he heads home to Anahim Lake in B.C. "to get away from it all."

"It doesn't feel like it's over yet," Price said. "When your season ends in the playoff, it ends real fast. It's kind of a shock."

Price will gear his off-season workout regimen toward his status as the Canadiens' number-one goaltender.

"Last summer I didn't really know what to expect," he said. "Now I do. I gotta put in the work this summer and come as best prepared I can for next year."

The lesson Price derived from the playoffs, he said, was the importance of "keeping it on an even keel."

"We might have got too high at some points and too low at other points. You can't let that happen."

Price admitted to feeling "a little worn out" at the end of the Canadiens' run.

"I feel like I've been playing hockey for two years straight."

• • •

Mark Streit is an unrestricted free agent. While playing for a bargain-basement $600,000 this season, the Swiss defenceman/forward had 13 goals, 49 assists and was third in team scoring, behind Alex Kovalev and Tomas Plekanec.

"The team gave me a chance," Streit said, "and you know what? I love the city. For me, it's the best hockey city in the world. It's the best place to play as a professional hockey player. My first choice is Montreal."

Streit – who went through the playoffs with a partial tear in is back "similar to the injury Komisarek had" – will be 31 in December. He has chosen a very good tim to have a career season, and this is probably his last chance to cash in big-time.

"I think at the end of the day I make the choice," Streit said. "And in every choice of my career, it's very important that I'm happy.

"I have to feel comfortable where I play. I've been saying for a while my first choice is Montreal. Hopefully, we'll find a way that I'm going to be here for, I don't know, three, four, five years ... a long time."

Affter what he callled a "heartbreaking end" to the Canadiens' season, Streit will take a couple weeks to decompress before thinking about his UFA status. He did not indicate whether insistence on playing defence, his preferred position, would be an element of negotiations with the Canadiens.

• • •

Josh Gorges is a restricted free agent this summer. He made $495,000 for a season in which the 23-year-old emerged as a Top 6 defenceman.

"I'm not going to think about (contract status) right now," Gorges said. "I want to be back here. I want to be playing here for a lot of years.

"I'd love to stay," he added. "Playing in this city, it couldn't be any better. The passion of people who come to the games, you just really see the love of the game here. I don't think you hav that for hockey anywhere else in the world.

"It's a beautiful city . And this building when it's rockin' ..."

Gorges' season was representative of a team that rocked the Bell Centre on many nights, overachieving and confounding experts, most of whom predicted Canadiens would miss the playoffs.

"That was the case for a lot of guys," Gorges said of exceeding expectations, "myself, the Kostitsyn brothers, Mark Streit. A lot of guys stepped up this year and proved people wrong.

"We believed in ourselves and in each other as a team. We thought we were as capable of making the playoffs as any team out there.

"We just went out and played and had fun. The biggest key to our success was guys enjoyed coming to the rink and playing together."

• • •

The Brothers Kostitsyn and Mikhail Grabovski played for Belarus in the Worlds today. Tomas Plekanec will join the Czech Republic team and, surprisingly, Andrei Markov will play for Russia.

"He decided to join the team last night. The 11th hour change of heart is attributable to Markov's admirable patriotism.

"That's my country," he said. "If they think I can help the Russian team, I have togo. That's something inside you, you know."

Markov said it was "tough to say" how hampered hhe was by a banged-up shoulder annd knee during the playoffs. He said the injuries were "not bad right now."

"Sometimes it bothered me, sometimes not," the taciturn defenceman added. "But I could play with it."

Markov's own playoff contribution, he said, could have been "a little more and a little better."

"It was a good experience for us," Markov said of the 12 playoff games. "We know next season we'll have to play better.'

• • •

Jaroslav Halak is another RFA. Will he be content to come back to Montreal as Carey Price's backup?

"Everybody loves to play," Halak said. "I would love to play, but you have to earn it first."

It's rumoured that Halak may end up in the Russian elite league.

"I'd love to play here in North America," he said. "I'm young, and there's still time to go and play in Europe.

"Carey is a great goalie and he's young. We're just trying to push each other to play better."

• • •

Christopher Higgins will hang around Montreal for a while "because I've already paid my rent for May."

"Then I'll go home and train with Mikey (Komisarek) and enjoy the beaches."