By the numbers: Jakub Dobes has been historically strong in the 2026 playoffs

Félix Forget
By the numbers: Jakub Dobes has been historically strong in the 2026 playoffs
Credit: Capture d'écran/Twitter

The Canadiens gave us some truly memorable moments in the 2026 playoffs. While the loss to the Hurricanes was tough to take, the team still won two series and played 19 playoff games.

We're a long way from the days when we were already focusing on the top prospects for the next draft as early as February, you know.

And one of the key players behind that great run is Jakub Dobes. The goaltender, who had a solid regular season, took his game to another level in the playoffs, single-handedly stealing games and simply dominating.

And it's interesting to note that when you look at the advanced stats, Dobes looks really good: the Habs' goalie led this playoff run in save percentage above expectation, with 14.94. Basically, the quality of the shots from the Habs' opponents should have resulted in nearly 15 additional goals since the start of the playoffs.

Where it gets particularly interesting is that we see Dobes, at this level, looks very good when compared to other goalies since 2007-08, the first year the statistic was tracked. In fact, according to that figure, only nine goalies have performed better in a playoff run than Dobes has this year.

It's worth noting that Dobes is the leader among goalies this year, and his only real challenger is Frederik Andersen (12.48). The Hurricanes' goalie could end up overtaking Dobes if he has a strong performance in the finals.

Carter Hart, at 3.04, has almost no chance.

On numerous occasions during this playoff run, we've seen Dobes left on his own in front of the net. That was the case against the Hurricanes, but also during the famous Game 7 against the Lightning in the first round, in particular.

The young Czech goaltender rose to the occasion… and with a month to go before he can negotiate his next contract, let's just say he's given his agent some strong selling points, hehe.


In a nutshell

– Wow!

– Heads up.

– Interesting.

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