There was a Montreal Canadiens goaltending controversy. It was just a really short one. It lasted from around 10 p.m. Sunday until the same time Tuesday evening.
By the end of Tuesday’s epic Habs-Lightning bout, it was clear Samuel Montembeault was very much back on his game, after a disappointing night Saturday when the Toronto Maple Leafs put six pucks behind him in a 7-3 spanking of the Canadiens.
Then Sunday the new-kid-on-the-Habs-goalie block Jakub Dobes won yet another game, this one against the New York Rangers, bringing his record with the big team to a rather astonishing 5-0. It wasn’t Dobes’s best game, but he came up huge when it counted, in the overtime period, making two brilliant saves, one on Vincent Trocheck and another on Artemi Panarin. Obviously if he doesn’t make those two saves, we don’t get to watch our new national hero Patrik Laine pot the winner on a perfect pass from Kaiden Guhle.
So come Monday morning, there was indeed much talk — in cafés, at office water coolers (for those who still frequent offices!) and on sports radio — about who should get the start Tuesday against the Bolts. I posted on Facebook to say Martin St. Louis should go with the hot hand. My argument? If Dobes is playing better, he should get more starts than Monty.
Of course cooler heads prevailed and to precisely no one’s surprise Martin St. Louis went with Montembeault Tuesday. And he made the right call. First-off, you do need to protect your veterans and the 28-year-old netminder from Bécancour has indeed done yeoman service for the CH.
And he came back with a statement game, stopping 33 Tampa shots en route to a 3-2 comeback victory. He was on fire. Without him, they wouldn’t have won the game. End of story.
But the reality is the goaltending controversy may be gone for the moment but the goaltending conversation remains. After the win Tuesday, pundits were singing the praises of Monty, saying games like this suggest he’ll be the No. 1 guy for Team Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February.
The fact is he’s on the Canadian team mostly because Canada just doesn’t have any hot goalies right now and folks in the Canadian hockey world are mighty worried by that fact. Montembeault has played some great hockey for the Habs, but he’s also been inconsistent.
The numbers don’t lie. In terms of goals-against-average and save-percentage, he is nowhere near the top of the league. We all know that when this team is completely out of the rebuild, most likely he ain’t the No. 1 dude between the pipes.
That said, the hype about Dobes is over the top, proving once again how nutty Habs fans are. Mitch Melnick from TSN 690 was quite right the other day to say that it was time to stop all the Ken Dryden comparisons. C’mon man!
Dobes has looked great. He’s confident in the net and he doesn’t back down from any shooters. But he’s played five games for heaven’s sake.
We’ll have a much better read on the Habs goalie controversy/conversation in a month’s time. If Dobes is hotter than Monty at that point, and if the team is still “in the mix” to use the Canadiens’ favourite phrase, then he’ll get more starts.
Most fans I met Tuesday said you have to keep Montembeault as the No. 1 goalie for the moment.
“You can’t just get rid of Montembeault because Dobes is playing really well right now,” said Krista Bosshart, who was watching the game at Next Door pub on Sherbrooke St. W. in N.D.G. “Dobes has been amazing, but he’s only played five games in the NHL. You have to show some respect to Montembeault. We have the possibility of having a team with two goalies that are both performing well. We need both.”
Robert Benoit, who was scarfing down his meal at McLean’s before heading to the Bell Centre to go see the game, said Monty is No. 1.
“Dobes, you play him on the road,” Benoit said. “You maybe give him an extra start here and there but it would be too insulting to Montembeault (to give more starts to Dobes). He’s your No. 1. He made Team Canada, so you have to go with him.”
But Benoit admits things could change later in the season.
“If you’re in the hunt for a playoff spot, you go for the hot hand,” Benoit said.
Davide Allegra-Dumont, a fan at McLean’s, also feels it isn’t time for a goalie change with the Habs.
“It’s Montembeault’s job to lose,” Allegra-Dumont said. “We keep Montembeault No. 1 until he starts losing.”
François Dumont, also at McLean’s, said it’s too early to play Dobes more.
“I fear that playing him too much now will put too much pressure on him,” Dumont said. “But the thing is, the fans love Dobes and they want to see him play. So the team might be tempted to play him just because it’ll create more buzz. And that would be dangerous.”