Dobes embraces showdown with Vasilevskiy as Canadiens prepare to face Lightning

BROSSARD – Jakub Dobes is well aware of the massive gap in experience.

The Montreal Canadiens goaltender is a fresh-faced rookie with fewer than 60 games under his belt. Andrei Vasilevskiy, meanwhile, is a two-time Stanley Cup champion and a Conn Smythe Trophy winner, arguably the best netminder of his era.

Dobes has 113 fewer playoff starts than his Tampa Bay Lightning counterpart — but he won’t be intimidated when they go head-to-head in the first round.

“There’s still a lot of respect. He’s a great goaltender,” Dobes said Friday after practice. “But I don’t think the fear is there as much as it was the first couple of times we played them.

“He’s one of the best goalies in the league, and I don’t have that much experience. I have some, but playing against a goalie like that, it’s good to realize that you can beat him.”

The Canadiens visit the Lightning for Game 1 on Sunday after two heated late-season meetings helped set the stage for an anticipated series.

On both occasions, Dobes backstopped the winning side — including a 36-save performance in a 4-1 victory March 31 in Tampa — with Vasilevskiy at the other end.

“They have a great goalie. He’s done a lot in this league, and he’s a tough guy to beat,” defenceman Kaiden Guhle said. “But our guys are young and hungry and excited to accept this challenge.”

Those two wins against the Lightning were part of a strong post-Olympic surge for Dobes.

After the NHL returned from February’s Milan Cortina Games, the athletic 24-year-old from Czechia posted an 11-5-0 record with a .916 save percentage and 2.49 goals-against average, establishing himself as a reliable No. 1 on a Canadiens team that struggled to get a save for much of the season.

“I feel like it helped that I was playing more,” Dobes said. “I was just getting more confident out there and more comfortable.

“I was trying to just give it back and try to be as consistent as possible.”

The playing time hasn’t always been there for Dobes.

He began the season as the Canadiens’ backup until Sam Montembeault’s game dramatically fell off, then shared the crease with 21-year-old Jacob Fowler — widely considered the franchise’s goalie of the future.

“He’s feeling good,” Fowler said, calling Dobes one of his best friends on the team. “The way he works every day, his approach and how he loves the game, it’s fun to see. We’re happy to see him have success, and hopefully we can keep it rolling here.”

True to an oft-told stereotype about goalies, Dobes has a personality that stands out in the dressing room. He is so unfiltered that the Canadiens have even limited his media availability in recent weeks.

He once cried in front of the cameras after a loss. And when he briefly looked like the odd man out as Montreal juggled a three-goalie system in January, he said he “wouldn’t understand” a demotion to the American Hockey League because, simply put, he wins games.

In last year’s playoffs, he replaced an injured Montembeault during a 6-3 win over the Washington Capitals in Game 3, later admitting he was “afraid,” “excited,” “emotional” and “a mess” when he entered the net.

Dobes said Friday that experience — along with the starts he earned in Games 4 and 5 of Montreal’s first-round exit last spring — helped prepare him for the challenge ahead.

Even if he only has a fraction of Andrei Vasilevskiy’s experience.

“Last year going into the games I was probably more excited than I needed to be, and this year I can just go and play and know that it’s the same hockey game,” he said. “Today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday is the game. 

“Same pucks, same players. Just right before a game, all the guys will be more pumped up.”

NEW DAD NICK

Starting the series on the road could come with a small bonus for Nick Suzuki: a bit more rest. The Canadiens captain revealed Friday that his wife, Caitlin, gave birth Wednesday to their first child, a baby girl named Maya.

“My wife, she was awesome,” said Suzuki, who returned to practice after missing Thursday’s session. “A special day for us and both our families, and it was good timing for us right before heading to Tampa.”

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, a father of three boys, spoke about his own experience.

“It’s the most beautiful moment of your life, I believe, to have your first child,” he said. “It changes your daily life, it changes everything, but it brings you responsibility and purpose. A reason to live — outside of hockey.”

CHAPTER CLOSED

St. Louis played 972 games across 13 seasons for the Lightning, winning a Stanley Cup and a Hart Trophy in 2004. One of the greatest players in franchise history, his No. 26 hangs from the rafters at Benchmark International Arena.

So what emotions does he feel toward his former team ahead of the playoff series? Essentially none.

“I’m so far removed from that,” St. Louis said. “It’s my fourth year now, gone to the building plenty of times. I think the first time I went, yeah, it was a little weird.

“I don’t have any emotion attached to the Lightning right now. Zero.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2026.