Dobes did as much as he could, making 39 saves on 42 shots. He and the Canadiens were done in by the Hurricanes scoring three goals on six shots in a span of 2:47 late in the first period; it's difficult to criticize Dobes for any of them, though he shouldered part of the blame himself.
Sebastian Aho scored a power-play goal at 14:59 on a one-timer from the right face-off circle after Ehlers jumped on the ice late, got the puck and reversed it across the ice to the Hurricanes center.
Carolina captain Jordan Staal scored at 16:07 on a net-front redirection of defenseman K'Andre Miller's pass out of the corner. Josh Anderson lost a battle for positioning to Staal, who redirected the puck through the Montreal forward's legs.
Then forward Logan Stankoven scored on a 2-on-1 at 17:46.
"It's on everyone," Dobes said. "It's on me. It's on the guys. It can't happen. That killed us and we couldn't come back. I need to be better. I can not allow three goals in however many minutes. It's not good enough from my side.
"As a goalie you always try to keep it tight as much as possible. They just got three quick ones and we could not recover back. I will learn from it. We will learn from it for Game 5."
Dobes shut the door on the last 30 shots he faced to give the Canadiens a chance to come back, but it was not to be.
"He was good," forward Alex Newhook said. "Yeah, we hung him out to dry."
But Dobes wasn't dwelling on that, and certainly he wasn't going to throw his teammates under the bus even though he has been under siege for three straight games, facing 107 shots on goal, an average of 35.7 per game.
"I can play a good amount of hockey, I can definitely play a next round," Dobes said. "Hopefully we'll get there. I will go home and try to get some sleep and recover (Thursday) and be ready for Game 5."
How can you doubt him at this point? Dobes has been Montreal's best player in this series and arguably their best in the postseason, with nine wins in 18 games, a 2.53 goals-against average and .912 save percentage.
His save percentage is even better in this series -- .919 -- even with the barrage he has faced.
Most importantly, Dobes hasn't lost his belief in his teammates, even though they're not doing nearly enough to help him out.
"I feel like we've been the underdog the whole season, the whole playoffs, so we are super underdog right now," Dobes said.
He expects Game 5 to be their best in the series.
"I know how our group reacts to these situations," Dobes said. "I feel like our best hockey comes when our back is against the wall. So I feel like this is going to be exciting.
"Yeah, it (stinks) right now, but tomorrow is a new day. We'll be an amazing group full of exciting people and we'll have a great time on the plane. We'll go for a team dinner. We'll joke around and we'll bring our best hockey for Game 5. We promise we'll try our best to bring it home for Game 6."
