Vasilevskiy vs. Dobes goalie matchup in Eastern Conference First Round

Goaltending is an integral part of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. To better understand the strengths and weaknesses of each goaltender, NHL.com charted 100 goals against each goaltender late in the regular season to see what patterns emerge. Here is the comparison between Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Jakub Dobes of the Montreal Canadiens.  

The Eastern Conference First Round between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens features opposites in experience between two-time Cup winner Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Canadiens rookie Jakub Dobes, but there are similarities in size, style and even some of their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Each team’s ability to identify and create enough chances to take advantage of those tendencies could help determine who wins this best-of-7 series.

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Tampa Bay Lightning 

Vasilevskiy is in the running to win his second Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie with a League-leading 39 wins and a .912 save percentage that ranks third. But after winning the Stanley Cup in 2021 and 2022, and getting back to the Final in 2023, the athletic 6-foot-4 goalie hasn’t gotten past the first round in the past three seasons.

Create chaos: Taking the eyes and ability to cleanly read and anticipate plays away from one of the game’s best and most experienced goalies is always a sound strategy and the numbers back that up with Vasilevskiy. In those past three first-round playoff exits, 35 of the 55 goals scored on him came from screens (11), broken-play bounces (11), rebounds (nine) and deflections (four). It’s a trend that carried into this regular season as well, with goals from screens (19), rebounds (14) and broken plays (22) in this sample each higher than the averages for the more than 10,000 goals tracked for this project since 2017.

Don’t get in too tight: Of course, for all those rebound goals, it’s worth noting shots off the pads and blocker are going to come off hotter -- and travel further -- because Vasilevskiy wears Bauer, which uses materials purposely designed to create more active rebounds to buy the goalie time to recover and hopefully bounce past the sticks of opposing forwards crashing the net. 

Blocker side? High blocker has been a talking point in playoffs past but the 15 high-blocker goals in this sample are below the 17.8-percent tracked average for this project. The 17 low-blocker goals are, however, well above the 10.3-percent average, and the nine goals between the blocker and the body are more than double the 3.7-percent average. In total, 40 percent of the goals went in over the pad on the blocker side compared to 29 on glove and 11 clean shots went in blocker side compared to just five on the glove side. Vasilveskiy tends to hold his blocker in front of his right hip, which creates a little double coverage while also perhaps delaying his reach on blocker-side shots, which in turn can create holes under the arm on deflections because of the extension required.

Have to elevate: Of course, some of those 17 goals just over the blocker-side pad are also a sign Vasilevskiy is never out of a play, with significantly better than average results on plays and passes across the middle of the ice, and a reminder of the need to elevate over the pads to make sure you’re not giving him a chance to make a spectacular, momentum-changing save with those long legs and incredible flexibility. Even playing outside his crease on rush chances, it takes a great play to strand him enough to create a tap in on that right side, with only two goals on back-door plays to that side. 

Against the grain: Shots back the other way accounted for 26 percent of the tracked goals, well above 18.4-percent tracked average. A lot of that is simply forcing one of the NHL’s most explosive, powerful goalies to start moving one way before trying to catch him but it’s worth noting eight were over the glove, which he can lower at times while moving.

Jakub Dobes

Montreal Canadiens 

A rookie goalie backstopping the Canadiens in the playoffs? 

It’s worked before in Montreal, and after some ups and downs early in the season, the 24-year-old is 11-5-0 with a .916 save percentage that ranks ninth in the NHL since the 2026 Olympics. Keeping his 6-foot-4 frame more under control and contained within the crease is the root cause, which should serve him well in playoffs. Should he falter, the Canadiens have another impressive rookie, Jacob Fowler, who is 5-2-0 with a .918 save percentage since the Olympics and very different trends, in reserve.

Low glove? It’s worth a reminder that these goal totals do not represent a save percentage, but it’s still hard to ignore the biggest number being just over the pad and under the glove of Dobes, especially since it’s more than double the 10.4-percent tracked average. Dobes does use a modern “fingers-up” glove position, with the hand turned up almost like you’re motioning for someone to stop, and it does take time to turn that glove down over the pad in what doesn’t always look like the most natural motion. It is also something shooters are taught to look for and target with lower shots, but the reality is only five of those 24 goals came on clean looks, one of those was a breakaway, and all were earlier in the season when he was pushing his glove out at low shots more than tracking into them. 

Against the grain: Shots against the flow of play accounted for 20 percent of the goals on Dobes, including a lot of the clean looks, and that same tendency to reach and push at low shots in a way that pulls his torso away from the puck played on role low blocker too. 

Beware the long limbs: Not unlike Vasilevskiy, trying to convert second chances -- or even cross-ice passes below the hash marks -- along the ice gives Dobes a chance to use his athleticism and long limbs to make a momentum-changing save. In fact, the need to get these pucks above the pad played a role in many of the goals under his glove, including nine scored off broken plays and bounces. Goalies are taught to project their glove forward to cut off the vertical angle, but Dobes sometimes gets it out far enough that it leaves a gap between the glove and the edge of the pad that also contributed to those totals.

Wait for the step out: Dobes had a habit of sliding and shifting outside his posts earlier in the season to the point he often wasn’t covering anything with his big frame but has quieted his game and that tendency. He typically plays with a conservative initial depth within his crease but will take a step out once he reads shot. Waiting for that move out before making an east-west pass increases both the distance he must travel and the odds of scoring. As for sliding out of position, it happens most often now on odd-man rush passes, and the Canadiens inability to prevent a second pass back the other way led to five goals, tied for the sixth-most in the NHL despite playing fewer games than four of the other goalies.

Traffic proof? Dobes has excelled against screens this season, combining his size with a tall, narrow stance to see over traffic rather than having to look back and forth around it from a lower stance. Like most things in goaltending, however, there is a give and take, and Dobes can get caught in transition from that high stance into his lower save-execution stance, making quick shots and one-timers, which were a factor on 32 goals, combined with shots just over the pads, an effective tactic, even from the perimeter.