How Worrisome Was Samuel Montembeault’s Rocket Debut?

On the surface, Montembeault’s stats were not very good in his first AHL start with the Rocket. However, it should be noted that this was a very depleted Laval Rocket team playing in front of him. To start, three of the Rocket’s top players were still serving their 3-game suspensions from the brawl that occurred last Friday night against the Toronto Marlies. When you consider that one of those players is Laurent Dauphin, who is one of the top scorers in the AHL, and another is Joshua Roy, who has been a top producer with the Rocket since he turned pro in the 2023-24 season, it definitely kills a huge part of the team’s offence. The 3rd player is Alex Belzile, who is currently the team’s 2nd leading scorer.

To make matters worse, the team is also without Owen Beck and Jared Davidson, who are currently up in the NHL with the Habs. When they were in the AHL, they were great performers for the Rocket at both ends of the ice this season. With that being said, Montembeault and the defence have to make up for the fact that essentially 5 of the top 6 forwards on the Rocket are currently not in their lineup right now.

However, the team’s top defenseman, Adam Engstrom, is thriving in the NHL and may not be returning anytime soon. This leaves Montembeault to play behind a still inexperienced David Reinbacher and William Trudeau. Aside from those two, the team’s current defensive core is filled with borderline ECHL-AHL defensemen who really aren’t the best guys to help a goaltender looking to find confidence in his game.

Nonetheless, Montembeault was able to look better in his movements than he has at the NHL level for the majority of the game against the Monsters. That still doesn’t hide the fact that he allowed 2 goals in the matter of 3 minutes that made the Rocket fall behind 4-2 as a result of his goaltending inconsistencies.

Montembeault faced a lot of odd-man rushes during the game and was solid early on, but it’s clear the late goals that he allowed are a sign of a goaltender still lacking confidence in himself. This has been a huge problem throughout his whole career with the Canadiens, but allowing multiple goals in a small period of time has been more concerning than ever and is just part of why he feels unplayable at the NHL level.

While Montembeault played behind a depleted Rocket team and looked much better in his movement, his performance was clearly not consistent enough to truly be deemed a successful start to his conditioning stint.

With that being said, if he can’t find any consistency or play a very solid game against the Monsters again on Saturday, his conditioning stint may not be enough to fix him as a goaltender. It’s evident that the Habs want him to bounce back so they can continue to develop Jacob Fowler properly in the AHL, but with how bad things are going for Montembeault, his time as an NHL goalie may be coming to an end. His conditioning stint is scheduled to end Sunday, where he will join the Habs in Pittsburgh.

Do you think Montembeault’s time in the AHL could help him bounce back, or are his game and confidence damaged beyond repair?