MONTREAL — It took decades for the Montreal Canadiens to ice a roster that didn’t have to depend on miracles from its goaltender to win, but this star-studded version of the team wouldn’t be staring at its first opportunity to dispatch the Tampa Bay Lightning from the Stanley Cup Playoffs far sooner than expected if not for the divine performances Jakub Dobes has delivered.
By the numbers, the 24-year-old has been the best goaltender in the NHL since early March, saving 18.9 goals above expected over his last 20 games of the regular season before stopping 121 of the 134 shots he’s faced from the Lightning this series.
Dobes’ 40 saves — including 10 in the final 3:31 — in Game 5 played the biggest role in getting the Canadiens here, and the ones the rookie makes next could get them to the next round by the end of Friday night (7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT, Sportsnet, Sportsnet+).
Who’d have had Dobes out-dueling Vezina finalist Andrei Vasilevskiy to this point?
Well, Kaiden Guhle for one.
“He’s been great. I don’t think anyone’s shocked,” Guhle said on Thursday. “He’s a confident guy. He likes these big moments, he wants these big moments. I think if you look back to his first game last year — a shutout against the defending Stanley Cup champs — he lives for this. I think that’s what makes him so good. He comes up and he shows up in these big moments, and he made a lot of big saves for us (Wednesday), and that’s what you need from your goalie in the playoffs sometimes is to make those big saves when a team really makes a push. He’s been really good for us so far.”
He’s been a difference maker, while Montreal’s superstars have been searching for the goals that would alleviate the pressure on him to be one.
Could Game 6 be the one for Suzuki, Caufield and Slafkosky?
Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky have made their mark on the power play, but all three have been held to zeroes at five-on-five through this series.
They’ve been targeted by the Lightning, suffocated with and without the puck, and they’re all fighting for oxygen to do what they do best.
If they can deliver in Friday’s Game 6, it’s hard to imagine there being a Game 7 come Sunday.
“I just want to help create more for the group,” said Caufield, “and I think tonight’s a great opportunity to do that.”
He has one goal in this series after scoring 51 this season.
Slafkovsky, who beat his career high of 20 by 10, scored a hat trick in the opening game but has been on the receiving end of much more damage than he’s inflicted since then.
There was the Game 2 fight with Brandon Hagel, in which he was dropped with a right hand to the chin.
And there was the Game 4 hit from Max Crozier, which not only knocked Slafkovsky off his feet but also knocked him out of rhythm.
“It happens,” the 22-year-old said Friday morning. “I turned, and I saw him coming too, and there just wasn’t much space where I could go at that moment. He got a good hit. Good for the guy. Doesn’t play much, so maybe it makes him play a little more. Have to take it. But it doesn’t matter if I get hit or anything; it’s how I come back. I just want to keep playing hard the same way, and I think it’s all good.”
What would be good is for Slafkovsky to hit back on the scoreboard, where he can cause the Lightning the most pain.
“I would love to do more, love to get on the board more, score more goals and stuff,” he said. “But sometimes it’s going to be like that.
“Obviously I expect more of myself, but anytime it’ll come I’ll take it.”
The Canadiens would take it right now.
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis knows how Suzuki, Caufield and Slafovsky must be feeling.
He too was a targeted top player in the playoffs. He too knows how deep you must dig to break through.
“You have your own expectations, (and) you hear everybody else’s expectation,” St. Louis said. “All that is noise and chaotic, and can you just stay focused and clear with the reads that you have to make while all this is around you? You can’t control that (noise and chaos). You can control this (your focus).”
Easier said than done when elite players like Hagel, Anthony Cirelli and Nikita Kucherov are doing the checking.
“Both teams are defending extremely well and extremely hard, and I feel like you have to be able to manage the way the game is played,” said St. Louis. “Sometimes you find yourself having to defend more than just worrying about offence, because their matchup hasn’t been easy. They’re playing against guys who are defending hard and they’re trying to score too.
“Sometimes you have matchups where it’s easier in the sense that the line that’s matching you is not necessarily trying to score too, so you can honestly have more calculated risk in your game. I’ve experienced both, and you have to be on high alert as an offensive guy when you’re getting defended by offensive guys that are playing defence too. It’s not that easy, and I feel like our series is tight because of that. Offensive guys from both teams are playing defence as well.”
Jon Cooper said before arriving in Montreal on Thursday that the Lightning would learn a lot about themselves in Game 6.
When asked what they should expect to learn about themselves after saying on Friday he’s not expecting their season to end at the Bell Centre, Cooper responded: “Everybody talks about experience and stuff like that that can get you through series. You know what gets you through a series? Execution, playing hard, finishing checks, all the things you do in a hockey game; that’s what gets you through. Getting a big goal when you need it or getting a big save when you need it; that’s what gets you through series. But it’s putting that together…
“We’ve got that core group of guys and then kind of a whole bunch of newcomers coming in, and what we’re saying to ourselves is, ‘What are we?’ This is our time. It is time to rise to the occasion. I look back at training camp and just so many things that have gone on with this group and how they’ve literally fought their way to this point, and that’s what we’re talking about. It’s like, was it all for nought?”
Cooper confirmed Lightning captain Victor Hedman won’t play Game 6.
“He’s going to be an option really soon,” Cooper said.
But Hedman hasn’t been one for the Lightning since March 19, and it appears doubtful he’ll be one before this series ends.
Cooper wouldn’t confirm if Charles-Edouard D’Astous or Nick Paul will play Game 6, but it appears both are likely returning to the Lightning lineup.
D’Astous spoke with media after the morning skate, which he hasn’t done since suffering the hit that from Josh Anderson that knocked him out in the middle of Game 1. And Paul also told reporters he was feeling better after missing Game 5 due to illness.
On the Canadiens side, though Noah Dobson joined his teammates at the optional morning skate for the second time, he’s not expected to play Game 6.
Dobson has been out since suffering an injury to his left hand on April 11.