Coming into a Thursday night preseason matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens had yet to concede a single goal in their exhibition games. That stat line was always bound to change, and icing a mostly inexperienced lineup against a Leafs side that was much closer to an NHL roster assured it would change sooner than later. Change, it did, and the Habs left Toronto with their first loss of the preseason in the process.
But while Jakub Dobes surrendered two goals, his may have been the best goaltending performance we’ve seen in the preseason to date.
He faced 34 shots, stopping 32 of them, and looked like an NHL-caliber talent for the full 60 minutes. The Leafs had the better roster, looked like the more polished team, and were churning out far more scoring chances for the first 40 minutes of the game. Dobes kept the young Habs roster very much in the game all the way into the dying minutes, despite the fact that it could have been a runaway win for Toronto after two periods.
His movement in the crease was efficient, making tough saves look easy. On several occasions, he was explosive in moving cross-crease in order to make some athletic saves against good lateral movement from the Leafs. It was a tough outing, and he handled it extremely well, which is hopefully a sign of things to come from him this year.
Unfortunately for Dobes, there really isn’t room for him to push for an NHL job this season. The Habs didn’t carry three goaltenders for as long as they did last season just for fun. They obviously believe in Samuel Montembeault and Cayden Primeau enough that they want to let them share the crease this season, and not walk into another log jam. For Dobes, this means his duties will be as the workhorse starter for the Laval Rocket.
But if this performance is indicative of what we can expect from Dobes in Laval this year, he could find himself within striking distance of an NHL job as early as next season.
Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back after Saturday’s rematch with the Leafs, presumably with different rosters in action.
