The hellacious pace that the Dallas Stars brought to the third period last night was a sight to behold. With the Montreal Canadiens up 4-1, the Stars pulled their goaltender with over a quarter of the period remaining, storming their way back into the game and nearly forcing overtime. The Habs were essentially holding on for dear life, scarcely able to clear their zone, let alone get an attempt on the empty Dallas net.
Hold on, they did, and thanks in no small part to their goaltender, Samuel Montembeault.
He made 30 saves on the night, the overwhelming majority coming after the Canadiens decided to sit on their two-goal lead established in the second period. He was brilliant, making a number of positional and acrobatic saves, and refusing to allow the puzzling lead-sitting strategy to ruin a good night.
As for the titular question of this article, it is somewhat of a challenge to answer definitively. According to moneypuck, Montembeault ranks 17th this season in goals-saved-above-expected (GSAx) among NHL goaltenders who have played at least 17 games. Given that there are 37 goalies in that cohort, that puts him right around the middle of the pack of a group consisting mostly of starting goaltenders. By that statistic, one could conclude that he is a starting goaltender in his own right. A middling starter, but a starter nonetheless.
But he hasn’t been infallible, or undeniable this season, and that is at times what we tend to look for in a starter. The Montreal faithful have been spoiled for some time, as outside of some questions early in his career, Carey Price became undeniable. The bar for “true starter” in Montreal is perhaps higher here than it needs to be, skewing our perspective of what a starting goaltender is.
Montembeault has at least proven himself capable of starting, and we should consider the significant price reduction that comes with him not having the pedigree of his predecessor. He costs a paltry $1 million against the cap this season, and even when his raise kicks in next year, the Habs will only be paying $3.15 million AAV for a goaltender who looks capable of playing the majority of their games, and giving them every chance to win those games. The flexibility this would provide in giving him the run support that Price never had cannot be understated.
Ideally, they’ll want to give Montembeault as much work as possible for the remainder of the season, so they can gauge exactly what he’s capable of over a larger sample. If his new contract didn’t seal the deal, his play should be making it less and less likely that the team engages in any trade talks involving him.
This means that they have to get serious about moving one of Cayden Primeau or Jake Allen. Though Montembeault has led the three in starts, the net is a tad too crowded right now to really give him the work he needs to determine if he can truly own the starting role. The top-10 starters in the NHL right now have all played over 20 games, so there is no way to know if Montembeault could find himself among them without a similar workload.
He just might be post-Carey Price era starter, but until there are less mouths to feed in the crease, we can’t know for sure.
