The Montreal Canadiens began investing in goaltending capital at the NHL Draft over the past few seasons.
With Carey Price entrenched as their starter, this wasn’t a need for a long time, but the former management team started to take late round swings at potential succession plans in the past few drafts.
They were able to come away with some interesting young options that are currently in the system.
Cayden Primeau had two terrific seasons of college hockey and has looked good at the AHL level for the Laval Rocket. He may be the Canadiens starter of the future, but he will have some competition. Joe Vrbetic is having a solid season for the North Bay Battalion of the OHL and Frederik Dichow showed some skill at the Olympics for Denmark.
There is also Jakub Dobes, who burst onto the scene for the Ohio State Buckeyes this season.
Dobes was a 5th round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft after an okay season statistically that was split between the USHL and NAHL, two Junior leagues in the United States. The native of Czech Republic moved across the ocean to continue his hockey career, and it is starting to look like the move has paid off.
This season was the 20 year old’s first in college hockey and he was nothing short of excellent. Ohio State was not pegged to do much at the start of the season, but their star goaltender carried them to a 22-12-2 overall record in the regular season. They finished 4th in the Big Ten Conference standings and are taking on Penn State in the conference quarterfinal series this weekend.
Once again, the Buckeyes have leaned heavily on their goaltender in a search for success.
The Canadiens prospect has posted a 2.27 GAA and a .934 save percentage, which ranks fourth in the country. He played almost every game after starting the season as the team’s backup, and is on the long list for the Mike Richter Award, which is handed out annually to the league’s best goaltender.
In the quarterfinal Best-of-3 series that is all played in Ohio State’s home arena this weekend, Penn State was by far the better team in the first game. They fired 52 shots on goal, but Dobes turned aside 49 of them in a 4-3 win on Friday night. Last night, Penn State got the win, firing another 46 shots on goal, and scoring three times on Dobes who stopped 43 shots.
That is 92 saves on 98 shots on back to back nights.
Game 3 goes tonight at 8:00 PM EST, with Ohio State certain to lean heavily on their star freshman goaltender once again.
The winner of tonight’s game moves on to the Big Ten conference semi-final game next weekend, with the winner of that game moving on the conference championship game the following week.
If they lose tonight, Dobes’ squad still has a chance of getting invited to the NCAA Championship tournament as one of the top 16 teams in the county. They will be right on the cut line if they lose tonight, but a win would ensure they have a lot more hockey left to play this season.
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