Everything points to Jakub Dobes facing the Blue Jackets tonight

Tonight, the Canadiens will take on the Blue Jackets. This will be the Habs' final game at the Bell Centre before the start of the playoffs.

The team will finish the season with two road games.

Remember that right now, the Habs are in the thick of a battle for the top spot in the Atlantic Division. The team is looking to finish first or, at the very least, second to secure home-ice advantage in the first round.

This means the team is playing crucial games right now… and for tonight's game, they will likely rely on their No. 1 goaltender: Jakub Dobes, who could earn his 30th win of the season tonight, is expected to start.

That's what Renaud Lavoie reported.

Jakub Dobes vs @BlueJacketsNHL @CanadiensMTL @TVASports

— Renaud Lavoie (@RLavoieTVA) April 11, 2026

In fact, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see Dobes, who hasn't lost a game in nearly a month (March 19), start in goal for his team tonight. What will be interesting to watch, however, is who his backup will be.

Normally, we'd expect to see Jacob Fowler if Dobes is the starter… but tomorrow night, the Habs will play on Long Island at 6 p.m. And last week, in a similar scenario, Fowler was sent to Montreal (the site of the second game) to better prepare.

We saw Samuel Montembeault on the bench back then: will that be the case again tonight? We know the league recently reprimanded the Canadiens for doing that…

In any case, we should expect to see Dobes tonight and Fowler tomorrow. And we can assume that after that, Dobes will get all the starts until the team is eliminated.

Overtime

Speaking of Dobes, it's interesting to note that the goaltender hasn't allowed more than three goals in any of his last 12 starts. You have to go back to March 3, when he gave up six to the Sharks, to find a similar instance.

That puts his recent success into perspective.