Canadiens rookie Dobeš tries to tame Bell Centre

Jakub Dobeš has helped keep the Canadiens from losing consecutive games through the playoffs, even as Montreal’s home-ice record at the Bell Centre remains a 2-4 concern heading into Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final against the Carolina Hurricanes on Mon

MONTREAL — The Bell Centre has been loud all spring, the kind of atmosphere that makes a young team want to reach a little farther—faster, louder, riskier.

The problem for the Montreal Canadiens is that, for now, the home ice energy hasn’t turned into results. Through the playoffs. they hold a 2-4 record at the Bell Centre. and the challenge is waiting again on Monday night when they return for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final against the Carolina Hurricanes.

The series is tied after Carolina took Game 2. Montreal’s road split to open the series has already been banked, leaving home-ice advantage intact—while the Canadiens still look like a team searching for the clean version of themselves in front of their own fans.

Captain Nick Suzuki put words to the pressure after an 8-3 loss in Game 6 against the Buffalo Sabres in the second round. He described how the special atmosphere in the building can force a young roster into trying to do too much, away from the simplicity that tends to bring playoff success.

But there’s another benchmark that keeps mattering here—one that doesn’t live in home-ice volume, but in what happens immediately after pain.

Carrying the momentum of a long stretch without back-to-back defeats, the Canadiens have yet to lose consecutive games since the start of the playoffs, and even a month longer than that. That streak has been propped up heavily by rookie goalie Jakub Dobeš.

Since the advent of the salary cap in 2005. only two rookie goalies have played as many playoff games in a single year as Dobeš has this season—16 playoff games—without suffering consecutive losses this deep into the playoffs. One was Cam Ward in 2006. who came into a first-round series against the Canadiens and eliminated them on the way to winning the Stanley Cup with current Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour as captain. Ward did lose consecutive games during that run. but they didn’t come until his 21st and 22nd starts of the playoffs—games 5 and 6 of the Stanley Cup Final—before winning Game 7.

The other was Matt Murray, who led the Pittsburgh Penguins to the 2016 Stanley Cup without once losing consecutive games in his first 21 career playoff starts. Dobeš is the next name in that limited list.

What makes the moment sharper is how it started right where Montreal’s discomfort has been loudest—after a gutting, unfinished feeling on the ice.

After the overtime loss to Carolina in Game 2, Dobeš was hard on himself. He felt he should have had the shot by Nikolaj Ehlers.

“When you go to OT. you try to give the team as much of a chance as possible. and obviously. the first chance they got. they scored. ” Dobeš said after the game. “I just wish I could help the guys a little longer. but (the series is) 1-1. we’re going back (home). so I think we’re in a pretty good spot.”.

It’s not just that Montreal has been resilient. It’s that Dobeš has been doing the quiet work of a goalie who responds instead of spiraling—winning each time the playoffs have already found a way to sting.

The Canadiens’ good spot is tied directly to him. He has two Game 7 wins under his belt in these playoffs, one of them in overtime. And while Suzuki has spoken about young players wrestling with the building’s intensity. Dobeš has been doing the version of “getting used to it” that goalies are supposed to learn through experience—except he’s doing it as a rookie.

He’s also doing it with a particular kind of internal wiring. Teammates describe him as uniquely weird, and they love him for it. But he is also uniquely wired to win, to improve, and to compete.

That competitiveness starts long before the Bell Centre lights.

When Dobeš was 16. he didn’t have a team in his native Czech Republic. also known as Czechia. willing to give him a shot. That forced him to take an opportunity in St. Louis and run with it. If that chance to play for the U18 AAA Blues hadn’t worked out. he might not have continued playing high-level hockey. He might have gone back home and looked for other ways to continue his education.

Even then, his U18 coach saw the same focus that eventually traveled with him into the NHL. Lubos Bartečko, a former NHLer, told last year shortly after Dobeš made his NHL debut that the process behind his push is something others often don’t understand.

“It’s a process that people don’t understand. and once you understand it and you own it and you go through those ups and downs. he was very focused. Every time he had a bad game, the next day he wanted work. Like at 6 a.m., he wanted to go back and just work right away,” Bartečko said. “I told my wife when he got drafted by the Canadiens that I wouldn’t be surprised if. once he gets the chance. he will take it. Because I knew that’s what he did in youth. And you can’t teach that. It happened in AAA. it happened in junior. it happened in college (at Ohio State). and now it’s happening in the NHL.”.

Bartečko added: “I told my wife, when they give him the opportunity, he’s going to absolutely take it, and he’s going to be good.”

The path to a job on an NHL crease has never been smooth. Dobeš wasn’t taken in his first year of eligibility for the USHL draft. He went back to work in St. Louis and was drafted the next year. earning a scholarship to Ohio State and getting drafted as a flier by the Canadiens in the fifth round of the 2020 NHL Draft.

He didn’t make Montreal out of training camp last year and went back to AHL Laval with a single purpose: proving he belonged.

“When I was in Laval. I wanted to be here. ” Dobeš said after his fourth career NHL start (and fourth career NHL win) in Dallas last year. “The one thing is I want to prove that I belong here. and the second thing is I kind of want to show everyone they made the right choice. There were a lot of days in Laval where I wanted to be here. so it was kind of a motivation to show everyone that maybe they were wrong.”.

That quote came after Dobeš played 65 AHL games—hardly an eternity, but long enough to sharpen the edges of a player trying to earn his place.

He never saw the detour as a waiting room. To him, it was the next test, and the next chance to compete.

That competitiveness is also why, in these playoffs, he has responded to every one of the six losses he has faced with a win. Monday night gives him another moment to prove it.

In Montreal. with fans who have embraced him in the same way they once embraced Carey Price. Jaroslav Halak. Jose Theodore. and Patrick Roy. Dobeš will try to add a seventh win after a loss. A win would also move the Canadiens past the number Ward and Murray put up after a loss in their rookie Stanley Cup runs.

“It’s hard to describe,” Dobeš said of playing at the Bell Centre in the playoffs. “It doesn’t feel real, but it’s great. Every time we step on the ice it’s a privilege, and we need to be better at home. We talk about it, and we’ll try our best.”

For Montreal, Game 3 isn’t only about whether Carolina can be pushed back. It’s about whether the Bell Centre’s electricity can finally be turned into something the scoreboard recognizes—something simple. something steady. and something that starts with the bounce-back that has kept Dobeš’s rookie run historic.

Montreal Canadiens Carolina Hurricanes Game 3 Eastern Conference final Jakub Dobeš Nick Suzuki Bell Centre rookie goalie playoff record Cam Ward Matt Murray