Lariviere: Jakub Dobes Is Not Positioning Himself Well

The first time Dobes’ bad positioning cost him and the team was a power play goal scored by Ivan Miroshnichenko after sliding completely to the left of his crease, leaving the other side completely open for the Capitals forward to take advantage. In fact, Miroshnichenko tried to pass it to Alex Tuch in front of the net, but it got blocked by Josh Anderson’s stick, who tipped it into his own net. However, if Dobes had not slid so much awaiting Miroshnichenko’s, it likely would have gotten stopped by Dobes and not resulted in a goal. 

The other two goals that Dobes allowed that he should have saved were both scored by Alex Tuch. Dobes left too much room in hopes of challenging Tuch during a shorthanded 2-on-1 up ice that led to the Capitals forward firing a shot early from just inside the left faceoff circle that surprised Dobes by going far side. It was a great shot but had Dobes squared up to the shot better; he would have likely stopped it. If this shorthanded goal would have been the only bad goal that Dobes allowed on Wednesday, the issues with his angles wouldn’t be a topic of discussion, but he allowed two others throughout the game.

On his second goal of the game, Tuch skated through the slot before firing a shot from the right faceoff circle right into the left side of the net where Miroshnichenko had scored earlier. During the time Tuch skated through the slot, Dobes moved to follow Tuch, who baited the Canadiens netminder to one side of the net to open up the other side for a perfect opposite-side shot. All Dobes needed to do was stay in the middle of his crease, and he likely could have gotten across to stop the shot, but his positioning was flawed for the third goal of the night. Tuch deserves a lot of credit for mastering the book on Dobes, but the Montreal Canadiens netminder will need to get those positioning issues fixed if he doesn’t want to keep costing his team games.

While Marco Marciano’s approach to coaching Samuel Montembeault out of a slump last year didn’t entirely work, he has a great relationship with Dobes and has already done wonders for the netminder in the past. With that being said, there is no reason to believe that he can’t get the struggling goaltender back on track. The only thing is it could mean that Jacob Fowler continues to get the bulk of starts while Dobes works hard with Marciano to regain the positioning that he developed when they worked together last season. It’s time for Marciano to take that extra time with Dobes again and fix his positioning. 

At the same time, Dobes’ confidence is likely down, which is where the sports psychologist that helped him get back on track during a tough stretch last November comes into the fold. With the help of Marciano and his therapist, Dobes should be able to bounce back to the very least a goaltender that can do what the Canadiens need of him to secure victories like most of last season.