The Montreal Canadiens expect a lot from Carey Price, who makes $10.5 million annually. The struggling goaltender is demanding more from himself, too.

"Lets just cut to the chase, I just didn't play very good tonight," Price told reporters after allowing six goals on only 31 shots during his team's 6-5 loss Thursday to the Buffalo Sabres.

Despite plenty of scoring, the Canadiens weren't able to walk away with two points on Thursday, losing a crucial game in the surprisingly competitive Atlantic Division.

"I'm just not playing as well as I did earlier," Price added. "It's all upstairs, I gotta figure it out."

A breakdown of Price's performance this season shows that Thursday's poor outing wasn't a one-off result for the veteran:

Price's last two appearances have been his worst of the season, as he's turned aside just 52 of 63 shots.

He won't have much time to dwell on Thursday's loss. The Canadiens return to the ice on Saturday to take on the Vegas Golden Knights.

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The Dallas Stars will be without defenseman John Klingberg for at least the next three weeks after he suffered an upper-body injury, according to NHL.com's Mark Stepneski.

Klingberg was on the ice for nearly 21 minutes against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday, but he seemingly played through the ailment.

It's a major loss for the Stars because of Klingberg's ability to generate offense from the back end. In 16 appearances this season, Klingberg has registered five goals and eight assists. He finished second among defensemen in scoring last season with 67 points, one shy of Washington's John Carlson.

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With the Vegas Golden Knights up 4-3 against the Ottawa Senators in the third period on Thursday, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored a key insurance marker to give his club a two-goal lead.

However, the Senators argued goaltender Craig Anderson was taken out by Knights forward William Carrier and challenged the call.

The goal was upheld after the Situation Room determined "Anderson initiated contact with Carrier, who was outside the crease prior to the goal. Therefore no goaltender interference infractions occurred."

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At what point do the Arizona Coyotes take any infraction simply to go on the penalty kill?

While that's an absurd notion for any team, it's amusing to consider because Arizona has now notched nine short-handed goals this season through only 14 games, including two on the same minor penalty during Thursday's overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Coyotes now have a shot at the short-handed goals record. The 1983-84 Edmonton Oilers are the current record holders after scoring 36 short-handed goals.

The Coyotes' penalty kill is a rare offensive threat, and the team is also shutting down the opposition in that situation, as Arizona is killing off a league-best 91.1 percent of its penalties. The Coyotes have the best penalty kill success rate since the New Jersey Devils finished the 2011-12 campaign at 89.6 percent.

"It's a combination of everything: system, execution, players, courage, and following instruction. They all play a part and I wouldn't say there is one particular thing that matters most," Coyotes assistant coach Scott Allen, who runs the team's penalty kill, told The Athletic's Craig Morgan earlier this month.

"Aggressive with purpose is my philosophy," he added. "There are reasons behind it and how we do it. It's not on a whim. It's structured aggressiveness."

On Thursday, the Flyers couldn't find the back of the net on their two power-play opportunities. Scoring has been a rare occurrence this season against a Coyotes penalty-kill unit that's allowed just four goals, and the club is plus-five with a man in the box, the NHL's best showing in more than 40 seasons.

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Dave Tippett is enjoying life in the front office and isn't interested in making a return to being behind the bench.

"I didn't come here to coach," Tippett told theScore's Puck Pursuit Podcast. "If I wanted to coach, I could probably be back coaching. I came here with the mindset of helping build an organization and working with great people."

In June, Tippett was named senior advisor to the potential ownership group that hopes to bring an expansion franchise to Seattle.

"It's been a really interesting and fun process for me. Different from coaching," Tippett said. "I look back, I was a player for a long time, I was a coach for a long time, and having the ability to be involved in the startup of an organization that could end up being a legacy organization in the league, that's a pretty neat project."

Tippett last coached the Arizona Coyotes in 2017, but also doubled as the executive vice-president of hockey operations in his final season.

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Montreal Canadiens forward Joel Armia will miss six-to-eight weeks with a right knee injury he suffered during Tuesday's tilt with the New York Rangers, the team announced Thursday.

Armia has tallied three goals and four assists in 15 games during his first season in Montreal.

The 25-year-old Finnish winger was traded from the Winnipeg Jets to Montreal this offseason along with goaltender Steve Mason, a 2019 seventh-round pick, and a 2020 fourth-round pick for prospect Simon Bourque.

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Welcome to Puck Pursuit, a weekly NHL podcast hosted by John Matisz, theScore's National Hockey Writer.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play.

On this episode, NHL in Seattle senior advisor Dave Tippett and hockey historian Mike Commito join John for a pair of segments.

Topics include:

• Shaping the identity of Seattle's imminent NHL team
• The timeline for hiring Seattle's GM, other staffers
• What is 57-year-old Dave Tippett's long-term plan?
• The awkwardness of Gary Bettman's Hall of Fame call
• Looking at the HHOF's potential 2019 class
• Favorite stories from "Hockey 365"

... and more

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Could the NHL find a permanent home in Europe? Deputy commissioner Bill Daly seems to think so - at least eventually.

"Do I see it happening someday? Yes," Daly said Thursday on TSN 1050. "Do I see it happening in the short term? Probably not. ...

"The number of our players who are born and trained in Europe and add to the talent level of the NHL, the interest in the sport in a number of countries in Europe, make it almost inevitable that at some point the NHL will have teams in Europe."

Nearly 30 percent of NHL players are from Europe, according to Quant Hockey.

Daly noted that it's not a short-term priority for the league and added that many logistical issues would need to be addressed, including NHL-caliber arenas, travel capabilities, and willing owners. He also questioned whether some of the markets could support NHL franchises.

The NHL has played regular-season games in both Finland and Germany this season, but the idea of putting teams in European cities has never gained serious traction.

"I don't think you can expand by just one or two teams in Europe," Daly said. "I think you'd have to have some medium number of teams that can play each other and make travel and schedule far more efficient than it would be with one or two teams."

The idea of adding enough teams to form some sort of European division makes overseas expansion more challenging for the NHL than it is for the NFL, which could potentially put a single team in London, England thanks to football's comparatively limited travel.

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Injured Montreal Canadiens forward Paul Byron will be evaluated on a week-to-week basis, according to head coach Claude Julien.

Byron sat out the Canadiens' last four games with a lower-body injury and did not travel with the team on their latest road trip.

The injury was sustained in a home contest versus the Dallas Stars on Oct. 30. Byron left the game and did not return.

Byron sits eighth in team scoring with seven points in 11 games.

In other injury news, forward Joel Armia underwent an MRI after leaving Tuesday night's game with a lower-body injury. The team is currently waiting on the results, Julien said Wednesday.

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