It defies nearly all logic. The Montreal Canadiens lost in embarrassing fashion to the last-place Chicago Blackhawks one night. The next, they knocked off another recent Stanley Cup champion, the fourth they’ve beaten in the last five games, in one of their most impressive efforts of the season, as they edged the hosting Colorado Avalanche 2-1 in a shootout on Saturday, Jan. 4.
There’s at least plenty of credit to go around, in regard to the last outing.
Credit to Dobes
Most will go to rookie goalie Jakub Dobes, as it should. He stopped 22 of 23 shots, excluding two in the shootout, to win his second straight since getting promoted. After historically shutting out the opposition in his debut, he’s now sporting a miniscule 0.48 Goals-Against Average (GAA) and .982 Save Percentage (SV%), making the Canadiens look like geniuses.
Related: Canadiens’ Dobes Earns Shutout over Champion Panthers in Debut
That goes for head coach Martin St. Louis too. He’s the one who had the wherewithal to play Dobes when he did, when the aforementioned logic dictated he do just the opposite, i.e., play the inexperienced rookie against the now-13-24-2 Blackhawks, when the Canadiens were well-rested and in good position to support him, in their first game of 2025. Under normal circumstances, he’d have had Montembeault face the 24-15-1 Avalanche, who hadn’t played since Thursday, when the Habs had just played the night before.
Well, to clarify, they’d be normal circumstances for just about every other team. Not the Canadiens, who seemed to make their mishandling of Dobes’ predecessor, Cayden Primeau, an art form. Sure, by the end, after literally years of playing Primeau once in a blue moon and throwing him to metaphorical wolves on the rare occasions they did, without giving him much in the way of offensive support all the while, they didn’t really handle him at all. That’s kind of the point.
Dobes vs. Primeau
After Primeau lost 6-3 to the Boston Bruins on Dec. 1, giving up five goals (one empty-netter) including three in just 1:10 to put the game out of reach midway through the first, they never started him again. Before getting sent down to the American Hockey League on Dec. 29, he played once more, in relief of Montembeault on Dec. 12 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. In that game he gave up three goals on seven shots. It was kind of a…
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