Cowan: Banking on goalie Jakub Dobes was stroke of genius by Canadiens GM
The NHL Network ranked the Canadiens’ Jakub Dobes as the 10th-best goalie in the league this week.
It’s a well-deserved honour and very impressive when you consider Dobes was the 13th goalie selected at the 2020 NHL Draft.
Dobes made the NHL Network’s top 10 list after posting a 29-10-4 record last season, along with a 2.78 goals-against average and a .901 save percentage. The 25-year-old was the biggest reason why the Canadiens advanced to the Eastern Conference final, posting a 2.66 GAA and a .908 save percentage in the playoffs. In Game 7 wins over the Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres during the first two rounds, Dobes stopped 65 of 68 shots for a .956 save percentage.
Yaroslav Askarov was the first goalie selected at the 2020 NHL Draft, going to the Nashville Predators in the first round (11th overall). Two summers ago, the Predators traded Askarov to the San Jose Sharks, where he had a 21-20-4 record last season with a 3.60 GAA and an .884 save percentage.
Dobes could be the best bargain in the NHL this season, with a US$965,000 salary-cap hit in the final year of a two-year contract. He is by far the lowest-paid goalie among the NHL Network’s top 10.
The nine goalies ranked ahead of Dobes are the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Winnipeg Jets’ Connor Helleybuyck, the New York Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin, the New York Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin, the Boston Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman, the Washington Capitals’ Logan Thompson, the Dallas Stars’ Jake Oettinger, the Philadelphia Flyers’ Dan Vladar and the Minnesota Wild’s Jesper Wallstedt.
Only three of those nine goalies have a salary-cap hit under US$8.25 million this season — Thompson (US$5.85 million), Vladar (US$3.35 million) and Wallstedt (US$2.2 million). Vladar has a five-year contract extension that will kick in for the 2027-28 season with a salary-cap hit of US$5.5 million, while Wallstedt can become a restricted free agent next summer. Shesterkin is the highest-paid goalie with a salary-cap hit of US$11.56 million.
Last month, Canadiens GM Kent Hughes rewarded Dobes with a three-year, US$16.05-million contract extension that kicks in for the 2027-28 season with an annual salary-cap hit of US$5.35 million. That will still be a great bargain if Dobes can perform the way he did last season.
Of course, there’s no guarantee of that.
Goalies can be erratic, and Dobes has only 81 games of NHL experience, including playoffs.
Longtime Canadiens fans will remember Steve Penney leading the team to the 1984 Eastern Conference final after getting called up from the AHL’s Nova Scotia Voyageurs late in the season. Penney posted a 9-6 record in the playoffs, along with a 2.21 GAA, a .910 save percentage and three shutouts, with the Canadiens losing to the New York Islanders in the conference final. Penney quickly became a star in Montreal and during that playoff run, a fan at the Forum held up a sign that read “Penney’s from Heaven.”
The next year, Penney had a 3.28 GAA in the playoffs and an .867 save percentage with the Canadiens losing to the Quebec Nordiques in the second round. The following season, 1985-86, Penney was limited to 18 games because of knee injuries, opening the door for rookie Patrick Roy, who would lead the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup. Penney was traded to the Winnipeg Jets after the 1985-86 season in exchange for goalie Brian Hayward. Penney played only 15 games with the Jets during the next two seasons and his NHL career was over.
The Canadiens’ Samuel Montembeault provided another example last season of how goalies can be erratic. After three solid seasons with save percentages of .901, .903 and .902, Montembeault’s game totally fell apart with a .872 save percentage and a 3.43 GAA. He lost the No. 1 job to Dobes and the backup job to Jacob Fowler, who was called up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are banking on 37-year-old Sergei Bobrovsky bouncing back from a tough season with the Florida Panthers, posting a 3.07 GAA and a .877 save percentage, after winning back-to-back Stanley Cups. Last month, the Leafs signed Bobrovsky as a free agent to a three-year, US$21-million contract.
The 6-foot-4, 215-pound Dobes isn’t the most technically sound goalie, but he’s a battler with a high compete level.
“He plays with some kind of swagger and you can see it,” Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis said.
Indeed — and that can go a long way.
Dobes’s game reached another level after the hiring of Marco Marciano as goalie coach on Jan. 28 to replace Eric Raymond. In the 19 regular-season games Dobes played after Marciano was promoted from the Rocket, he had a 13-5-1 record with a 2.57 GAA and a .914 save percentage. Dobes has also worked hard with goalie mindset consultant Pete Fry.
“With Marco coming in, it definitely made me a way better goalie and I feel like I’m excited for next year,” Dobes said after signing his contract extension. “I feel like if I play like last year, I’m just excited for my potential and what I can bring to this team.”
With the NHL salary cap continuing to rise, Hughes was smart to show faith in Dobes and lock him up for the next four years.
