With a chance for some revenge on Thursday night, the Montreal Canadiens rolled into Texas to face a Dallas Stars team that had defeated them in a shootout at the Bell Centre less than a week prior. It wasn’t all that long ago where a season series split with the Stars would have felt like an impossibility, but they achieved precisely that with a 3-1 win, keeping themselves in the mix for the Eastern Conference wild card race.
Jake Oettinger was the difference maker for the Stars in the first meeting, and it was Jakub Dobes’s turn on Thursday, as he gave Dallas extremely little to work with.
Jakub Dobes with an emphatic no to Wyatt Johnston on this shot. pic.twitter.com/eYF3HmRr6Q
— Matt Drake (@DrakeMT) January 17, 2025
I wouldn’t quite call this win a steal on the level of some that we’ve seen in recent years, but there is no denying that Dobes was the most important player for the Habs in that win. The game script looked like the opposite of the Habs against the Utah Hockey Club the other night – a strong first period, followed by two periods where the Stars largely controlled play. The difference was that the Habs were able to solve Karel Vejmelka in the second and third periods, while Dobes gave up absolutely nothing outside of a first-period goal off a rebound.
Dobes is now 4-0 in his first four NHL starts, posting an 0.98 Goals Against Average and a .963 save percentage. He has done this while facing four of the best teams in the NHL – all of whom are essentially locks for the playoffs this year – and hasn’t had a single easy outing since being called up. How long he can keep this up would be a valid question, but it has been a veritable baptism by fire, and Dobes has at least proven that he is without a doubt an NHL goaltender.
The team seems to play with significantly more confidence in front of him than his predecessor. When they have a lead, they aren’t afraid to pressure puck carriers, or try to move the puck out of their zone. They don’t go into a shell and desperately try to block shots, they actively try to push the puck to the other end of the ice. They believe – correctly, I might add – that they have a chance to win against anyone when he’s in net.
They played a pretty good game against Dallas as a team. Perhaps not their best, but Jakub Dobes showed that he can give them a chance to win even when they have a tougher night.
Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back on Saturday night for a classic HNIC matchup between the Habs and the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Bell Centre.