Jakub Dobeš lost this game for Montreal about as cleanly as a goaltender can. He stuck his arm out in overtime, got whistled for interference, and 2:13 into the extra period Macklin Celebrini one-timed the power play past him for a 4-3 Sharks win. The penalty gave San Jose the man advantage, and the man advantage scored. There was no bad bounce in between, no fluky deflection to hide behind. He put his team down a man in the one period where there's no bench to hide behind, and the bill came due in seconds.
⚡ Upset:Sharks had a 29% chance before puck drop and beat Canadiens 4–3.
24%
The penalty blew this specific game. Dobeš was already a goaltender on thin ice: he'd given up five or more goals in each of his last three starts coming in, his save percentage down around .842, while 21-year-old Jacob Fowler was busy backstopping Montreal to a win over Buffalo on Saturday. Martin St. Louis started Dobeš anyway, a show of faith in a player who'd done nothing lately to earn it. Dobeš answered it by handing the benefit of the doubt right back in the highest-leverage minute of the night.
Outside the penalty, he was fine: 26 saves, a steadier night than his last few starts. Then he did the one impulsive thing that erased it. A goalie who plays badly for sixty minutes has a problem you can see coming. A goalie who plays well for sixty minutes and then torches the game with a needless penalty in overtime has a problem between the ears. Referees remember it, and so do opponents.
RatingBut walking out of the Bell Centre convinced Dobeš is the whole story means watching with one eye shut. Montreal blew a two-goal lead for the fourth time this season, in its ninth game. This is a team that doesn't know how to close. The tying goal came on the power play while Arber Xhekaj sat for unsportsmanlike conduct with 8:51 left in regulation. Jake Evans floated a pass into the middle that Celebrini turned into San Jose's opener. Lane Hutson turned the puck over to set up the goal that started the third-period comeback. Pick your culprit. There's a lineup of them.
Dobeš was the proximate cause, so he's the name everyone screamed on the way home. He earned the heat. But blaming him alone lets four skaters and a system off the hook, because his mistake was the easiest one to point at. The penalty is a discipline problem Montreal needs to fix in one man. The inability to protect a lead is a discipline problem it needs to fix in the whole room, and that one will cost them a lot more than a Monday night against the Sharks.
Dobeš has to learn to keep his arms in. Everybody else has to learn how to sit on a lead. Only one of those is being talked about this morning, and it's the smaller problem.
