What does Jakub Dobes have in store for Habs fans in his second full NHL season? Likely a season in which he'll prove he wasn't just a flash in the pan.
Jakub Dobes started last season as the Montreal Canadiens’ backup goaltender, and by the time the playoffs started, he had wrestled for the starting job away from Samuel Montembeault and outdueled Jacob Fowler to get the nod for the postseason. It was an eventful rookie season, to say the least; there were ups, there were downs, there was a crisis of confidence. At one point, the young netminder showed he was incredibly emotional, which earned him a break from the media, but at the end of the day, Dobes pocketed 29 regular-season wins and nine more in the playoffs.
In the offseason, he signed a three-year contract extension with a $5.6M AAV with the Canadiens, even though he still had a year left on his existing deal. That was a great confidence builder for the netminder, who might have felt last year like the organization didn’t trust him when the Habs kept going back to Montembeault even though Dobes was winning his games. Later that summer, NHL Network named him the league’s 10th-best goaltender, which can be seen as another confidence builder.
What can we expect from Dobes this season? A more focused goaltender who doesn’t have to worry about an expiring contract or a battle for the top job in net. Of course, Martin St-Louis would say that anything can happen at training camp, but realistically, as things stand, the job is Dobes’ to lose.
In The Hockey News 2026-27 Yearbook, THN predicts Dobes will improve his win total to 31. That makes sense, as the Habs are expected to keep improving organically, and it’s highly unlikely that he finds himself stuck in a three-goalie carousel. Montembeault is still around, and since Fowler can be sent down to Laval without clearing waivers, that’s likely where he will be unless the Bécancour native is traded until then. Fowler needs a lot of action to keep developing, and the last thing he needs is a three-way battle.
While the Canadiens will likely want to give Montembeault a chance to both bounce back and improve his trade value as he enters the last year of his contract, expect Dobes to get the lion’s share of the work, perhaps between 40 and 50 games. The 25-year-old has already established himself as a fan favorite, and he should keep building on that with a strong season to show he wasn’t just a flash in the pan. By signing him to an early extension, Kent Hughes has put him in the best environment to succeed, which was a wise move, especially with Montembeault’s contract expiring at the end of this season and the future looking like a Dobes-Fowler duo.
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