The Montreal Canadiens initially believed that promoting Jacob Fowler and sending Samuel Montembeau to the AHL for conditioning might resolve their goaltending issues, and at times, it seemed promising. However, signs of trouble are re-emerging.<\/p>\n
Following a tight loss to the Boston Bruins, coach Martin St. Louis was asked if he thought Montembeau was again in a vulnerable spot. He responded, \u201cNo, I don’t think so. The last goal, the puck\u2019s direction changed… No, I don’t believe vulnerability is the issue.\u201d Despite this reassurance, the reality remains that the team chose to deploy Montembeau in two critical divisional games, and his save percentage dipped below .815 in both. His overall stats this season\u20149 wins, 8 losses, 2 overtime losses, a 3.46 GAA, and an .869 save percentage\u2014are underwhelming for an NHL goalie.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Jakub Dobe\u0161\u2019s numbers aren\u2019t much better (3.01 GAA, .887 save percentage), but he has the advantage of a winning record (15-5-3) and recent success, going 5-0-1 over his last six outings. It seems the Canadiens are providing Dobe\u0161 with more offensive support, which could be a contributing factor. During a mid-season media session, GM Kent Hughes explained he prefers to let the best-performing goaltender earn the most starts\u2014yet, that\u2019s not currently the case. Dobe\u0161 has been hot lately, while Montembeau has struggled, especially after starting four of the last five games.<\/p>\n
With upcoming matchups against the Golden Knights, Avalanche, and Sabres, the Canadiens need someone to stand out and make crucial saves. At this point, Montembeau doesn\u2019t seem to be the answer.<\/p>\n
Fan Take: This ongoing goaltending dilemma highlights how vital a consistent and reliable netminder is to a team’s success. For hockey fans, it underscores the importance of depth at the position and could foreshadow changes that influence the Canadiens\u2019 playoff prospects and the league\u2019s unpredictable chase for the post-season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Montreal Canadiens initially believed that promoting Jacob Fowler and sending Samuel Montembeau to the AHL for conditioning might resolve their goaltending issues, and at times, it seemed promising. However, signs of trouble are re-emerging. Following a tight loss to the Boston Bruins, coach Martin St. Louis was asked if he thought Montembeau was again […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[730],"tags":[734],"class_list":{"0":"post-39157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}