Samuel Montembeault: a top-5 NHL goalie, according to (the model of) The Athletic

In 2025-26, Samuel Montembeault will play his fifth season with the Canadiens. The Québécois came to town unexpectedly via the waivers… and established himself as the club's #1 goaltender during its rebuild. And today, as the club turns the corner, he's still going strong as a starter.And yet,earlier today, The Athletic published its portrait of the Habs for the 2025-26 season. The weakness of the center line and the solid defensive brigade are topics of discussion… but Monty ‘s case is also getting a lot of attention.Because, according to the site's statistical model, Montembeault is seen as one of the NHL's top five goaltenders,nothing less.Nothing less.

Montreal Canadiens 2025-26 Season Preview with @seangentille and @shaynagoldman_

The Canadiens have arrived. Are they here to stay or is regression in the forecast after a fortunate breakthrough season?https://t.co/GPhObwqv9K pic.twitter.com/xtCJGJaEPe– dom (@domluszczyszyn) September 26, 2025

The authors of the text justify all this by saying that Montembeault is among the league's elite in terms of saves made above what is expected. What this means, concretely, is that the Québécois steals many, many goals compared to what's expected of him (based on the quality of shots he faces).Malicious tongues will say that it didn't really show last night against the Maple Leafs' C-team (and that's not untrue)… although earlier this week, we saw a better example of all this against the Penguins.

Preseason or not, this is worth another

look#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/pxa60vsa2l– Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) September 22, 2025

The Athletic ‘s authors also point out that across the league, other teams (who have their own private data) see Monty more as a goalie somewhere between 10th and 15th, so they qualify their assessment a bit. But according to the site's data, Monty is seen as a top-5 guy:

His ability to save his team is seriously underrated – The Athletic

We've seen it over the past few years: Montembeault is capable of stealing games. Andfor a club that relies on a young (albeit talented) defensive brigade, it's reassuring to have such a goalie in front of the net.

'Overtime'

– It's true.

Filip Mesar will have to pass several forwards in the pecking order before he'll be considered for a recall with the Habs this season, but the fact that he played inside the faceoff dot in his two prep games is encouraging.

His moves in… pic.twitter.com/QMPfAl2IAk– Nicolas Cloutier (@NCloutierTVA) September 26, 2025

– Your prediction?

With these forwards, you know you're going to see a boatload of points. Who finishes atop the crop this season? pic.twitter.com/YTfW1bYwWD

– BarDown (@BarDown) September 26, 2025

– Alek Manoah goes Atlanta,

Orelvis Martinez goes Washington. https://t.co/1gZ6pJGnCx –

Passion MLB (@passion_mlb) September 26, 2025