It doesn’t take after a strong night from Jacob Fowler to pull you back in. Over the weekend, he picked up his second career shutout, stopping all 30 Detroit Red Wings shots on goal.
En route to the win, he also made franchise history as he stopped every shot he faced, from regulation to overtime and into the shootout.
Since the shootout was introduced in 2005-06, it’s Jacob Fowler, and that’s the end of the list. Carey Price never did it, nor did Jose Theodore.
We’ll never know if Dryden, Plante, the Gumper or Roy would have done it. Some of them didn’t even have regular-season overtime. It’s truly an incomparable moment in the history of this franchise.
You can see it. You know what the Montreal Canadiens have here and can picture the heights this kid can reach as he grows.
Montreal Canadiens must remain patient with their top goalie prospect
However, it’s a genuine question to ask whether what we saw from Fowler represents who he currently is. By that, I mean are we set to get the best of Fowler going forward, or are we still going to keep seeing the flashes of an unfinished product?
After his season debut, the fanfare would be there, but not in the same way.
He stopped just 15 of 18 shots on goal. This isn’t to say that he can’t ever have a night like that in order to show he’s ready. It’s the reality that we’ve seen only that, along with the shutout so far this season.
Three goals got past Fowler against a team that was 20th in goals scored last season and is in the middle of the pack early on. Through more than half the game, he was a perfect 8-for-8, and as Nashville gained more momentum, that was it. He was 7-for-10 the rest of the way.
That performance leads to more of a mindset that says, let's see what happens.
Keep in mind, last season, we saw the best of the best from him, and we still deemed that he needed more time to be ready for action. It’s a major season why he started the season at Laval and an injury was necessary for these two starts to happen.
None of this should be seen as a dig at Fowler. Far from it. If anything, this is a way of looking out for him.
If this were baseball, it would be like checking in on a pitcher outside of his one game where he went the distance and struck out a dozen hitters. The other night, he walked five over five innings. The changeup could be the best you’ve ever seen, but the command isn’t there quite yet.
The same can be said for a goalie. The quicker tempo, the harder shots- they all come with being at the highest level of a sport. It’s about ensuring more consistency and raising his floor rather than having the raw talent to have those magical nights that show what his ceiling can be.
Maybe I’m concerned for no reason. I’d like that to be the case. Let’s see how the larger sample size plays out, and maybe by the time Montembeault is back in a couple of weeks, we’ll have a better idea of where Fowler stands.
Keep in mind that he's 21. He can stick around at the developmental stage for another season, and the Canadiens would still have a young star on their hands.
By then, the mood could change. The buzz could be more alive and well than ever. For him, you hope the time has come for the latter.
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