The Montreal Canadiens played an uninspired game at the Bell Center on Wednesday night, and it feels like their goaltender deserved better.
The Montreal Canadiens had an opportunity to tie the Eastern Conference Final when they hosted the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night at the Bell Center, but only one player played like he believed that was a possibility: Jakub Dobes.
From start to finish, the netminder was the Habs’ best player, and he never stopped trying even though the team in front of him looked like it was just going through the motions. On his 25th birthday, the masked man faced another 42 shots and made 39 saves for a .929 save percentage.
Throughout the game, he was the only one who gave the fans in the stands any reason to cheer. Speaking to the media after the game, Lane Hutson said it best when he summarized the game:
The only one that turned up was Dobby […] It was a shitty, shit game.
It’s not the first time the Czech netminder is the Canadiens’ best player in a game; it’s been the case in most of the Canadiens’ wins and even in their losses in these playoffs. When the goaltender was asked to comment on the game, he explained:
Yeah, it sucks right now, but tomorrow is a new day. We’re an amazing group full of exciting people. We’ll have a great time on the plane, we’ll go to dinner, we’ll joke around and bring our best hockey for Game 5, we promise. We’ll try our best to bring it home for Game 6.
Dobes had every reason to be annoyed about the game and the result. He could have been critical of his team, but he wasn’t. Not once on the ice did his body language show that he was blaming a teammate for a goal. The 25-year-old led by example on the ice, and he also acted like a leader once the game was over. In 18 games in these playoffs, he has a 2.53 goal-against-average and a .912 save percentage.
After Game 7 of the second-round series, when he was asked if he was getting a bit tired, Dobes said he wasn’t and could play another 40 games. Watching him play, it looks like he wasn't kidding. But the same cannot be said for the rest of the team, who simply appear to be running on an empty tank. The Canadiens just don’t have the energy needed to fend off the relentless forecheck of the Hurricanes, who are proving without a shadow of a doubt that they are the best team on the ice in this series.
It’s a shame because Dobes deserved better, and the Canadiens had set up a storybook moment by having Jaroslav Halak be the torchbearer. The Slovak netminder appeared on camera not only bearing the torch but also holding a stop sign with Dobes’ name. It was a wonderful wink to the fact that the goaltender is doing exactly what Halak did in 2010 and is being cherished by the fans just like he was. Unfortunately for the team, it seems history will repeat itself, and the Canadiens will bow out of the Eastern Conference Final in five games, just like they did back then.
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