Many fans believe that Samuel Montembeault will stay in Montreal

Charles-Alexis Brisebois
Many fans believe that Samuel Montembeault will stay in Montreal
Credit: Arianne Bergeron/NHLI via Getty Images

Let's take a look at the Canadiens' goalies.

Currently, the Canadiens have three goalies capable of playing in the NHL. In reality, the situation hasn't changed since the end of the 2025–2026 season.

We thought that would have changed, but it hasn't.

While it's expected that Jakub Dobes will be in net for the Canadiens in Game 1 of the season, the question remains as to who will be his backup (Jacob Fowler or Samuel Montembeault) to start the season.

On that note, Grant McCagg posted a poll about the goalies on X. He offered four options: Dobes / Monty, Fowler / Monty, Dobes / Fowler, or three goalies.

The question was: Who will start the season in town? So this isn't a question about what people want to see.

And a few hours after his poll was posted (for what it's worth), we see that nearly half (48.3%) of the fans who responded expect to see the Quebec native start the season at home.

Basically, this means that fans aren't necessarily holding out much hope that the Habs will trade Monty, who is entering the final year of his three-year contract.

At the time of writing, 37.4% see the Jakub/Jacob duo in net, 1% don't see Dobes (in case of injury, maybe?), 51.7% don't see Monty in the mix, and the remaining 9.9% voted for a three-way rotation.

I get the feeling that with the quiet offseason the Habs have just had, many people have lost hope that the Canadiens' GM will be able to pull off a major trade before the end of the offseason.

It's still possible to pull it off, but I think it's starting to get late.


Quick Q&A

– Indeed.

– Stay tuned.

– Moving a big contract isn't easy.

– Well done.

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