Jakub Dobeš, Emotion, and the Year I Loved Hockey the Most
"All people stop smiling once they get what they've been begging for"
Jakub Dobeš
The first time I saw Jakub Dobeš live was in February of 2024. He was in his first pro season with the Laval Rocket and they made a trip down to my backyard in Connecticut to play the Hartford Wolf Pack. Initially, it was hard to believe there was a pro goalie there. At first glance, he was a tall but lanky goalie who seemingly didn't fit into his equipment. His pads, his glove, all of it seemed two sizes too small.
Laval ended up winning that game 5-2. While the story on paper was Jared Davidson's hat trick, something now too familiar with Dobeš took place in that hockey game.
He kind of stole it.
Laval was outshot 36-23. The Rocket gave up a goal in the first minute and looked a step or two behind from the opening faceoff. Louis Domingue let in some questionable goals at the other end and Dobeš flailed his way to a strong goaltending performance. At one point in the game, Dobeš went to push off his post and the entire net came off the pegs. The crowd lost their minds, thinking Dobeš did that intentionally (something he, of course, would never do). Dobeš put his palms skyward and threw his head back, a goalie's way of saying "come on, it was an accident!" That might have even been true.
In the spring of 2024, the only goaltending prospect anyone in Montreal had any time for was Jacob Fowler. Drafted in 2023, the Florida native was in the middle of his first collegiate season and he was cooking. By the end of the season, Fowler would boast a 32-6-1 record with Boston College and was already being considered the heir apparent to the last elite goaltender the Habs had. You may have heard of him.
Even if, at this point, I did not see Dobeš as the next starting goalie of the Montreal Canadiens, there was at least a hope that he could play NHL games for the Habs before long. Montreal, at that time, had a three-headed monster in net, with the Canadiens unwilling to waive Cayden Primeau or trade Jake Allen for most of the season. Dobeš was the fourth best goalie in the Habs system with a seemingly can't miss prospect just behind him.
The next season, that started to change a bit.
With Montreal struggling, overworking Sam Montembeault, and unable to trust Primeau, Dobeš got the call to make his first NHL start. The assignment? A road start against the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers during the Habs' notorious Christmas road trip. The result, as we all anticipated, was 4-0 shutout for Dobeš in his NHL debut. On that road trip, the Canadiens astonishingly defeated the last four Stanley Cup champs, with Dobeš also beating Colorado a few days later in a tight game and Montembeault putting together his best effort of the year in Vegas.
Dobeš' call-up changed the trajectory of the Canadiens' season. The rookie netminder played 16 of the remaining 47 games, allowing Montembeault the ability to rest, and Montreal shocked the league with their first playoff birth under Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton. And when Montembeault went down with an injury in their first round series against the Washington Capitals, Dobeš held on in game three to give this group their first playoff win together.
Coming off two seasons with goaltending difficulties, it seemed like Montreal had finally figured something out. Primeau was traded in the offseason and the Habs were poised to run a duo of Montembeault and Dobeš. It was reasonable to be, at the very least, cautiously optimistic about this.
When Montembeault stumbled out of the gate in 2025, Dobeš was more than ready to pick up the slack. Winning his first six starts, Dobeš flirted with stealing the starter's net all together and it seemed like he was driven by that possibility.
Then came game seven.
Emotion
Before Dobeš won two game sevens on the road in the same playoffs, there was a game seven with the complete opposite feeling.
On November 6th, Montreal lost a tough game to the New Jersey Devils. New Jersey tied the game in a 6 on 5 situation and went on to win it in overtime. According to Moneypuck, Dobeš gave up four goals on nearly two expected goals. It was a bad start, but not the kind of start you lose your cool about - especially a start like that from a rookie goalie. After the game, that rookie goalie was in tears. He pinned the loss on himself, saying he was "disappointed" in himself.
That was, understandably, the last we heard from Dobeš for a little while. The Canadiens' communications team kept him from meeting with the media for a bit and it was obvious why. The emotion wasn't necessarily the wrong emotion to feel, it was just far too much for that moment. On November 7th, the day after this game, Montreal was still in first place in the Atlantic Division and were tied for first in the conference. We were hardly in "it's so over" territory. That fire is what drives players like Dobeš, but it can burn them. And it became clear that Dobeš was not able to immediately shake off the effects of that loss.
Dobeš' next start came a week later against the Dallas Stars. He did not finish the game. After giving up five goals on 13 shots, Montembeault started the third period, giving up two more goals on six shots. Every part of the Habs' game was struggling and the goaltending was the most concerning aspect of it.
Dobeš went on to lose his next start, a 4-3 shootout loss in Columbus. That was followed by a relief appearance for Dobeš where Montembeault was pulled in the second period against Washington, allowing three goals on 10 shots. The game that got the Habs' season back on track was Dobeš' next one, a 5-2 win over the struggling Toronto Maple Leafs at the Bell Centre on a Saturday night. Dobeš was not particularly encouraging in that game. He was still fighting the puck and often times had difficulty finding the puck, but it was enough.
And it was enough for the Canadiens, who were able to settle down a bit after that game. From that game on November 22nd through the end of the season, only three teams were better than Montreal. The Habs were behind just Buffalo, Colorado, and Carolina and were tied with Dallas. Dobeš provided serviceable goaltending, putting up a .904 save percentage the rest of the way and finished the season with 17.3 goals saved above expected, tied for 7th in the NHL. After Montembeault was given a few chances to find his game, including a conditioning stint in Laval, the net belonged to Dobeš and would remain his for the Habs' unlikely run to the Eastern Conference Final. To Dobeš' credit, he never really had another postgame blowup like he did against New Jersey in November. Even when the Canadiens got destroyed in game 4 of the conference final on Dobeš' birthday, he still met with the media with a bit of a smile on his face, saying he had some cake at home and he was going to go enjoy some.
During that run, we learned a lot about the Canadiens as a group and about the individuals that make up the larger picture. We probably learned the most about Dobeš, a player we already understood to be fiery and cocky, but for the first time in his career, we learned that could be his x-factor. That x-factor, for some reason, rubbed much of the traditional hockey media the wrong way.
During the second round series against the Buffalo Sabres, the intermission panel for Sportsnet spent a few segments across different games talking about Dobeš' emotional response to the moments that made up their run to the conference final. That panel was put off by... his smile? Dobeš' desire to enjoy the moment was finger wagged as a distraction. That culminated in the scenes we saw in game three against Buffalo. Beck Malenstyn took a rush down the boards and decided to run over the Habs' goaltender. Montreal took a powerplay out of the fracas that ensued and scored on the powerplay. Dobeš, celebrating the goal as if he scored it himself, chirped the Sabres' bench. He celebrated every goal the rest of the night, including Alex Newhook's empty net goal that was celebrated a little prematurely, as he was hooked on the breakaway and the puck never actually went in the net.
In every series he played in, Dobeš was a target for contact from the Habs' opponents. It was probably the worst against Buffalo with the Sabres taking some pretty healthy runs at the Habs' rookie netminder and never missing an opportunity to chirp him. Dobeš, predictably, gave it right back to the Sabres. Which is why, in his infinite wisdom, Kevin Bieksa said it was concerning Dobeš was engaging in this behavior. He called it a waste of energy. Funny enough, he didn't say it was a waste of energy for the Sabres to be doing the same thing.
Maybe the Sabres would have had a bit more energy in game 7 if they cut it out. I guess we'll never know.
Before the Canadiens' final game of the playoffs, game 5 of an incredibly lopsided series against Carolina, Henrik Lundqvist was speaking on TNT about what it is like playing in the playoffs. Lundqvist, one of the fiercest competitors of his time, said the only time he could smile during the playoffs was with the lead on home ice. The rest of the playoffs were just so intense he found it impossible to feel joy.
When it comes to goaltenders playing with emotion, I think I will side with the guy in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Game three against Buffalo wasn't Dobeš' best game of the playoffs, but it felt like his most satisfying one. To stomp Buffalo in that game, to be the centre of attention in it, and to soak in the crowd cheering him on had to feel like a high so potent it should be a controlled substance. And yet, if you watched the English broadcast in Canada, you would come out thinking he committed some unforgiveable sin. Enjoying that moment, to them, was some hedonistic pleasure one should take shame in; that all hockey players are meant to be stoic even in the presence of pure joy; that every emotion is unhelpful in achieving your goal and each should equally be discarded as a distraction.
First of all, the entire premise of the argument completely falls apart when you take in Dobeš' body of work in the playoffs. When the Canadiens were eventually eliminated, no goaltender had a higher goals saved above expected (13.3). If being too emotional was wearing him down and distracting him, the numbers certainly didn't show it.
Secondly, I think the fault in this assessment stems from a misunderstanding of what it is to play in Montreal. Treating the Bell Centre like one of 32 NHL arenas and treating the Canadiens as one of 32 NHL clubs is inherently flawed. The Habs are an N of one. In Montreal, emotion is not a distraction for the players who know how to use it. To live and die with those emotions, especially those experienced in game three against Buffalo, is to live in the moment. You are as focused as you can be in that moment. To try to absolve oneself of the responsibility of that moment is the distraction. Avoiding your emotions only evokes another emotion in response to them: fear. Pushing those emotions away doesn't make you tougher or more engaged. It puts you on the back foot, now constantly playing defense against a force you cannot control. Would you rather fight a wave, swimming against it with all your might, or swim with it and see where it takes you?
Dobeš was doing the only thing he could in that moment - he was living where his feet were. And his feet were in a very rare place at a very rare time.
For the longest time, I thought I knew what it was like to play in that building when the lights were brightest - what that rare moment and rare place felt like. This season, I learned about it firsthand.
The Year I Loved Hockey the Most
I have been a Canadiens fan for close to 20 years now. Growing up in Connecticut, my first live Habs games were away games. The first one was against the Islanders in 2008. Montreal trailed 4-1 with about 12 minutes to go in the third period before orchestrating a comeback and winning 5-4. It was, until this season, the greatest hockey game I had ever seen live. Habs fans showed up to that game on Long Island in busses. The hotel in the parking lot had Habs flags flying from the balconies. For the longest time, that was what I associated a home game with. It felt like the closest I would ever get to the real thing.
For some reason, I kept putting off making the trip to Montreal. I don't even have a particularly good reason for it. I think I was just sort of expecting it to happen like some kind of divine intervention; that a reason to make the trip would fall out of the sky or, better yet, the tickets would.
One day, after a particularly rough period at my day job, I decided I was done waiting. After a nearly 20 year wait, it was time to have this experience. The team was finally pretty good and I had money to make the trip happen (usually these things were never true at the same time). Now I just had to pick a game. Of course, it had to be a Saturday night. And not to be too picky, it would be nice for it to be a meaningful game too. A rivalry game or a divisional game would be a bonus.
So I made the choice: Saturday night against the Leafs in late November. If that game sounds familiar, it's because it should. The Canadiens lost five in a row leading into that game but were able to pull out a win. It was a win I talked about earlier where Dobeš didn't look quite right but he battled against a team who had all but given up. It was difficult to see at the time, but it was a win that got the Habs' season back on track.
Outside of the game itself, it was a surreal experience. In the nearly 7 hour drive to Montreal, I thought a lot about what it would be like and why it mattered so much to me. In the nearly 20 years I have been watching this team, I have probably watched, conservatively, over 600 Habs games broadcast from the Bell Centre.
It is such a bizarre feeling for a building to mean so much to you without ever having stepped foot inside of it. That somehow the Bell Centre I watched on TV - the one where Artturi Lehkonen scored the overtime winner to send the Habs to the final; the one where PK Subban scored coming out of the box against Boston; the one where the Habs erased a 5-0 deficit to beat the Rangers - wasn't a place I could actually go. It might as well have been a stage in a video game or a movie set. The Bell Centre was just a place where stories happened. For all of my life up to this point, I was just happy someone had the forethought to put some cameras in there so I could come along for the ride.
But now I was there. Mike Matheson was interviewed after the Canadiens eliminated Buffalo in game seven in overtime and he said he spoke up in the locker room before overtime started. He asked his teammates what their 8 year-old selves would feel in that moment. Being married to a prospective therapist means I do this quite frequently. My inner child would have been in awe of that moment, so I let him take over for a bit. Life wasn't all that easy when he fell in love with the game. He earned that moment and it felt right letting him soak all that in.
When the lights went down and "Fix You" was starting to play, the emotions got the better of me. But that's what they're supposed to do. If I wasn't at all moved by that moment, what was the point of any of this?
I got to the Bell Centre two more times before the season was over. The second I got back to my hotel room after that first game, getting back to the Bell Centre was my primary focus in life. It occupied every quiet moment I had, so much so that when I planned to attend the home finale with my wife, Kristen, and my adopted Locked On Canadiens family, I snuck in an additional game at the Bell Centre to see Cole Caufield become the Habs first 50 goal-scorer in my lifetime.
It's cliché to say these are moments I will never forget, so I won't say that. What I will say is I weaponize these moments to my advantage. Whenever I need a smile, remembering how I felt in those moments delivers. I have been sitting in the dentist chair a lot recently (long, sad story), and when that guy starts drilling when the novocaine has not fully set in yet, I remember how I almost fell down celebrating Caufield's 50th goal, just shouting "HE DID IT" over and over again while jumping up and down with my wife. Or how later in that game, Juraj Slafkovský scored the go-ahead goal and I screamed so loud I saw spots. And before I know it, that bastard has stopped drilling my teeth and I have stepped back into reality midway through a lecture about flossing.
Since hockey was introduced to me, I have loved the Canadiens. But I can say with absolute certainty that this is they year I loved hockey the most. Sure, the Canadiens made that easy with their best collective season in over a decade, but it was more than that. It was waking up at 5am for a week and a half to watch the Olympics and cheer for Nick Suzuki; the first Habs forward since Mark Recchi to play for Team Canada. It was living a dream and getting to Montreal to watch a bunch of dudes live their dream too. It was watching this group win back to back game sevens and being thrilled because I was not ready to say goodbye just yet.
It was learning to engage with a moment emotionally. I know I am still learning to do that. I imagine most of this team is still figuring that out, including a 25 year-old goalie who has already backstopped this hockey team to a final four finish.
So I hope Dobeš never stops smiling. I hope he keeps whacking opponents who get too close to him. I hope he celebrates every goal harder than the one before it. An emotional reaction to the present moment is not a distraction. It's an understanding of where you are. And for Dobeš and Habs fans everywhere, where we are is pretty special.