Dobes' rise key for Canadiens ahead of Game 6 against Lightning

MONTREAL -- From tears to cheers.

That, in a nutshell, describes the past five-plus months of Jakub Dobes’ life, an emotional roller-coaster journey that has ascended to the point where the rookie is on the cusp of helping the Montreal Canadiens reach the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Who could have predicted it would have gotten to this point after Dobes began welling up during a media scrum after a 4-3 overtime loss against the New Jersey Devils on Nov. 6 as he pondered what his place was in the Canadiens goaltending picture moving forward?

That seems like a lifetime ago, especially after he outdueled Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy in Montreal’s 3-2 road victory in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference First Round on Wednesday.

“I feel the confidence has always been there,” the 24-year-old said after his 38-save performance, with 17 of the stops coming in the third period, when the Lightning kept pressing for the equalizer. 

“It’s just about feeling more comfortable playing minutes. Seeing tendencies and stuff like that just helps me predict plays and see what the guys do. There’s a lot of unbelievable players in this league and they’ve been in a lot of situations many more times than me. 

“So I feel that playing more just helps me feel comfortable.”

He’s all that and then some right now.

Thanks in part to his calm, cool and collected play, Montreal is one win away from advancing. The victory gave the Canadiens a 3-2 lead in this best-of-7 series and the chance to eliminate the Lightning with a home victory in Game 6 at raucous Bell Centre on Friday (7 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, ESPN2, The Spot).

This was a series in which Vasilevskiy was supposed to be the one deciding edge the Lightning had in a matchup between teams that both finished the regular season with 106 points.

Instead, it’s been anything but.

Keep this in mind, too: Dobes’ outstanding performance Wednesday came on the same day Vasilevskiy was named one of the three finalists for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s top goalie.

Yet it was Dobes who stole the show, earning him a postgame interview with Kyle Bukauskas on Sportsnet. He’d just finished his first answer when he suddenly looked over his shoulder.

“Sorry, did you see something?” Bukauskas asked.

“They’re watching it in the locker room,” Dobes replied, grinning from ear to ear.

“They are?”

“Yeah,” Dobes said, breaking into laughter.

“We better make this good then,” Bukauskas said, chuckling himself.

At the conclusion of the chat, Dobes’ teammates could be heard cheering wildly for him as he headed toward the dressing room. 

My, how times have changed.

Back in November, at the time of his weepy meeting with the press, he’d beaten himself up for allowing the winning goal to the Devils. But it was more than that. With Samuel Montembeault having retained the starting job out of training camp and prospect Jacob Fowler, now 21, already being labeled the Canadiens’ goalie of the future, the uncertainty of his own role was eating away at him.

Enter Patrick Lalime, the former NHL goaltender who is now a broadcaster and covers the NHL and the Canadiens for TVA Sports in Quebec.

Lalime himself had a solid NHL career, going 200-174-16 with 32 ties in 444 games with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ottawa Senators, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks and Buffalo Sabres from 1996-2011.

And yet, after all those highs, he could relate to Dobes’ situation, specifically how the lows can gnaw at a goalie.

In Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs on April 20, 2004, the Maple Leafs won 4-1 thanks in part to two first-period goals from forward Joe Nieuwendyk that squeezed through the five-hole of Lalime. To this day Lalime, who was pulled for the start of the second period with Toronto up 3-0, knows he should have stopped both.

“You ask yourself what you could have done differently,” Lalime told NHL.com last April. “It took years to get over it. You want to do so well for your teammates. Time helps. But you don’t completely forget, especially since it came against the Maple Leafs, the team we wanted to beat so bad.”

As such, Lalime sympathized with Dobes’ emotional struggles. So, about a week after Dobes had cried in front of reporters and TV cameras, Lalime had a heart-to-heart chat with him.

“I just tried to cheer him up a bit,” Lalime said Thursday. “You know, you come into the League and it’s easy to get carried away with one game. You’ve got to realize it’s a long run, a long season, a long career. He’s an emotional kid and always will be because that’s who he is, but I just told him to stay the course and see the big picture.”

Those words eventually seemed to resonate. Dobes took over the starter’s job on Jan. 27 and posted 14 wins the rest of the season, trailing only Vasilevskiy (16) and the Dallas Stars’ Jake Oettinger (16) in that span.

Carrying that momentum into the postseason, he has better numbers through five games than Vasilevskiy in terms of wins (3-2), goals-against average (2.49-2.68) and save percentage (.903-.880).

“I’ve been impressed the way he’s handled the matchup against Vasilevskiy,” Lalime said. “You don’t really play against the other goalie, but you also know a guy like that rarely slips up. And I think he’s been very solid throughout the series, very calm on and off the ice. Very in control.

“He’s stayed the course. I’ve been impressed with how he’s handled the whole year. And he’s been true to himself. If he feels something, he says it. But on the ice, he’s dialed in.”

Should he continue to be that way in Game 6, the Canadiens very much could punch their ticket into the second round. For his part, Dobes is champing at the bit for the electric atmosphere that awaits him and his teammates once again at Bell Centre.

“We can’t wait,” Dobes said. “It’s going to be crazy. And we will be ready. I know how excited our fans will be.

“Exciting times.”

And, in the end, should the Canadiens prevail and win the series, don’t be surprised to see tears once again trickle down his cheeks.

Only this time, they’ll be tears of joy.