BUFFALO, N.Y. — Montreal Canadiens first-year netminder Jakub Dobes says he takes pride in not losing faith in himself after Buffalo scored three times on their opening four attempts. More importantly, he remains grateful that Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis chose not to pull him from the game.
The difficult opening, which wasn’t completely the goaltender’s responsibility, ultimately helped Dobes find his rhythm and rebuild his confidence. He turned away Buffalo’s remaining 32 attempts in Thursday night’s 6-3 victory that put Montreal ahead 3-2 in their second-round playoff matchup.
“I told him thank you for leaving me and trying to prove myself,” Dobes said, referring to St. Louis. “That’s a big part, to have (the) trust of your coach, and I will never disrespect it. I appreciate it and the only thing I was trying to do just give some momentum back to the team and try to keep it tight, and it worked out.”
Game 6 is at Montreal on Saturday night.
Despite whatever difficulties Dobes experienced early in a contest where Buffalo held a 3-2 advantage by the 10:15 mark of the opening period, the 24-year-old Czech player convinced his teammates he had found his rhythm again.
This became especially clear about four minutes into the middle period when he denied Tage Thompson during a breakaway opportunity after Buffalo caught Montreal during a line change. The Sabres’ top regular-season goal scorer rushed in from the left side, moved across the goal mouth only to see Dobes track his movement and block Thompson’s attempt with his left leg pad.
Montreal answered by scoring three times during the period’s final 12 minutes to establish a 5-3 advantage.
“It was a huge save,” Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki said. “We never lost confidence in him. Everyone was struggling in that first period. And I just thought that was a big moment for us.”
For Dobes, who posted a 29-10-4 record during his initial complete NHL regular season, the challenging-then-successful performance taught him about resisting frustration. The netminder admitted his spirits dropped after rookie Konsta Helenius scored Buffalo’s third goal between his legs.
“The one lesson I learned from today was just got to have a better body language for the boys — don’t let them know that I’m not feeling maybe my best,” Dobes said, noting he was reminded of that during a first-intermission discussion. Dobes has been Montreal’s starting goaltender since the playoffs opened, and is now 7-5 in which he’s allowed 28 goals.
St. Louis said it was goalie coach Marco Marciano’s decision to not pull Dobes.
“Ultimately, it’s probably my decision right? But I feel like the goalie position is probably the one position that I can help much,” said St. Louis, a former NHL forward. “So I try to stay out of it and not be emotionally driven, and being upset that we’re down.”
St. Louis described the conversation over the radio with Marciano, who was watching from the press box, as being brief.
“He said, ‘No, keep him in.’ OK, let’s move on,” St. Louis said.
Forward Juraj Slafkovsky defended Dobes by saying Buffalo’s first goal pinballed in by deflecting off Sabres forward Jason Zucker and then a Montreal defender. And Dobes was screened when Josh Doan beat him to put Buffalo up 2-1.
“We didn’t help him there, but then he came back and he was in a game, and he was once again really good,” said Slafkovsky, who had three assists. “It’s just Marty trusting him. I think it’s huge for confidence of (Dobes). And we all trust him as well.”
