Goaltending is still one of the biggest talking points for the Canadiens, but the conversation around Montreal’s crease looks a lot different now than it did a year ago.
What used to be a question about who could stabilize the position has turned into a deeper debate about how the Canadiens sort out three goaltenders who can all make a case for NHL starts. Jakub Dobes is the name at the front of that line heading into 2026-27, Jacob Fowler is pushing hard after his first real taste of the league, and Samuel Montembeault suddenly finds himself fighting to get back into the mix.
Dobes made the loudest statement of the group in 2025-26. The 25-year-old put together a 29-10-4 regular season and earned more and more trust as the year went on.
When Montreal needed someone to seize the crease, he did it. His second-half surge was enough to move him ahead of Montembeault on the depth chart.
He carried that form into the playoffs, too. Dobes finished Montreal’s postseason run at 9-6-4 with a 2.66 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage.
The stat line held up, but the bigger takeaway was how he handled the moment. He looked steady when the pressure climbed and showed he could manage the weight that comes with being the Canadiens’ starting goalie in the playoffs.
That summer contract changed his outlook even more. Dobes is no longer just trying to prove he belongs in the NHL.
Now the opportunity is bigger: he can try to lock down the job for the long haul. The catch is that Montreal still has only 59 regular-season NHL games to evaluate, so there’s more to learn before anyone can stamp him as the answer.
Still, if last season was the start of something real, the Canadiens may already have found their guy.
Fowler is the wild card. Montreal has long treated him as one of its top goaltending prospects, and his first extended NHL look did nothing to knock him down that ladder. He closed 2025-26 with a 9-6-2 record, a 2.43 GAA and a .908 SV%, which is a strong showing for a young goalie making the jump.
The next step is less clear. Fowler is close enough to the NHL that he could win a roster spot out of training camp, but the Canadiens also don’t have to force the issue. If Dobes truly has the starter’s net, Montreal has to decide whether Fowler is better off backing him up or getting a heavier workload with the Laval Rocket.
Camp may help sort that out. Fowler’s development has moved forward in steady steps, and 2026-27 could be the season he becomes a full-time NHL goaltender. If Montreal rolls with a Dobes-Fowler tandem, it would give the club one of the youngest and most interesting goaltending pairs in the league.
Montembeault is the one trying to claw his way back into the picture. He entered 2025-26 as the established starter, but the season did not go the way he needed, and by the end of it the depth chart looked very different. He is still in the organization, and he still brings more NHL experience than Dobes or Fowler.
That experience could matter if he turns in a strong camp. Montreal could still find a path for him if the team decides Fowler would benefit more from regular games than from a secondary role in the NHL.
But the margin for error is thin now. With two younger goalies pressing for work, Montembeault can’t afford another long stretch of uneven play.
The Canadiens don’t have to force a final answer right away. The cleanest outcome would be Dobes taking another step, grabbing the starter’s job, and Fowler continuing to develop behind him. For Montreal, that would create a young tandem with room to grow alongside the rest of the core.
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