Don’t Blame Dobes for the Canadiens Loss

If you’re looking around for someone to blame for the Montreal Canadiens’ 1–0 overtime loss in Game 6, you’re looking in the wrong place. The real difference was Andrei Vasilevskiy, a future Hall of Famer.

Dobes Was Solid for the Entire Game.

Jakub Dobes didn’t lose that game. In fact, he probably gave the Canadiens exactly what you hope for in that situation—maybe even a little more. He threw out a regular-game shutout by stopping 32 shots. And for most of the night, he was in one of those calm, locked-in goaltending duels with Vasilevskiy. That’s not a mismatch Dobes asked for, and it’s not one he backed away from either. He looked every bit as strong as the veteran goalie on the other side.

Through regulation, he was solid and controlled. It was the kind of performance where you stop noticing the goalie because he’s just doing his job so well that it disappears into the background. And that’s usually a good sign.

The goal in overtime? That one’s going to show up in the box score, but it’s not really a story of a mistake. It’s a second-chance puck, chaos around the net, and one of those moments where things just don’t bounce your way. Gage Goncalves found it, and suddenly the game is over. That’s hockey in May.

Dobes has been rock solid for the Canadiens this whole series.

And here’s the bigger point: this isn’t new for Dobes in this series. He hasn’t allowed more than three goals in any playoff start. He’s sitting with a .916 save percentage and a 2.19 goals-against average heading into Game 7. That’s not a goalie dragging his team down—that’s a goalie giving them a chance every single night.

The truth is, the Canadiens have been in every game in this series. Tight margins, low scoring, lots of structure, and not much separating the two teams. In that kind of hockey, the goalie doesn’t need to be perfect—he just needs to be solid. And Dobes has been exactly that.

The Canadiens would trade a small miracle for a bigger miracle.

Could he have made a miracle save on the overtime goal? But if you’re asking your goalie to be perfect in a game like that, you’re already in trouble. That won’t work.

My way of looking at it is simple: if your team scores one goal in a playoff game, you don’t go looking for the goalie afterward. The small miracle would've been for him to somehow stop the overtime puck. But the bigger miracle for the Canadiens is that they found themselves a goalie who’s capable of holding up under playoff pressure.

Dobes did his job. The Canadiens just needed one more play somewhere else on the ice. If the team’s first line scores, it could be a series win for the young Habs.