It was a special game for young Montreal Canadiens’ goaltender Jakub Dobes. After the organization had finally lost both confidence and patience with 25-year-old masked man Cayden Primeau, the organization called up the Czech and decided to give him his first career start against the reigning Stanley Cup Champions, the Florida Panthers.
If the man of the hour was nervous, it certainly didn’t show as he had a flawless first frame, stopping the 10 shots the Panthers sent his way. Spencer Knight was just as flawless at the other end of the ice though as he too stopped the nine shots the Habs put on net.
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Montreal had a pretty good first period, winning 53% of the faceoffs and the third line came quite close to opening the score, but Knight ultimately prevailed. The Canadiens benefited from a two-minute man advantage but weren’t very threatening on the power play.
The first wave found out you don’t have as much time to plan your move when you are a man up when you’re taking on the Panthers over say, the Buffalo Sabres or the Nashville Predators for instance. Lane Hutson did very well the hold the line under pressure, he was as calm as a veteran would have been, dancing up there and handling the puck.
Florida came out roaring in the second frame, clearly feeling like they should have had the lead in the game, they won the faceoffs, they directed lots of shots toward Dobes, but he stropped them all once again.
At the other end though, the Canadiens’ second line formed of Patrik Laine, Kirby Dach and Alex Nehook produced a great passing play and it was badly snake bitten Dach who finally managed to score, with assists from Kaiden Guhle and Newhook, his first helper of the season. Laine didn’t get an assist on the play, but he was definitely part of the build up, a much needed plus-one for the Finnish sniper.
Undeterred, the Panthers kept on pushing, but Dobes kept on shinning. About 12 minutes after Dach’s first goal, Newhook sent him a perfect saucer pass which put him on a breakaway, the big center didn’t miss his opportunity and scored his second of the game.
Less than four minutes later, while the Canadiens were shorthanded, Jake Evans scored in a fourth consecutive game to make it 3-0. After 40 minutes, the Panthers had 24 shots to the Canadiens’ 17 and had won 58% of the draws, but they still found themselves in a 3-0 hole. An interesting predicament considering they were shutout in their last game before the Christmas break.
We saw more of the same in the third frame, Florida shooting, Dobes stopping and the Canadiens scoring. The first line, which didn’t stand out much in the first two periods of the game produced the Habs’ only goal of the period. Juraj Slafkovsky timed his feed to Cole Caufield perfectly, just as the sniper beat his coverage and the diminutive winger scored his 18th goal of the season, putting the game out of reach for Florida.
In his first career game, Dobes managed to pitch a shutout and not an easy one either, he had to make 34 shots to claim it. The Panthers didn’t make his life easy, as always, they had a strong presence in the crease and the goaltender had to battle for his space in the blue paint. The one time his positioning was off and he’d left some space near side, the post came to his rescue. As they say, you have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good. The last rookie goaltender to start his career with the Canadiens with a shutout is was Yann Danis back in 2005.
Related: Dobes Against Florida Isn’t a Good Idea
Overall, this was a great team performance for the Canadiens, Evans’ and his whole line kept building on the momentum they had before the break, Dobes did exactly what was expected of him and then some by completely shutting the door on a great offense and the Christmas break seem to have been salutary to Dach and Newhook. The former doubled his goal production in one game and the latter finally got his first assist of the season, before notching a second one.
The Canadiens will feel like celebrating this win, but they won’t have much time to do so since they’re playing the Lightning in Tampa Bay tomorrow at 5:00 PM.
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