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Dobes Stays Undefeated, Montreal Gets Even With Dallas in Rematch From Saturday

taylor newby
·4 min read

In the second low-scoring, competitive game in less than a week, the Montreal Canadiens avenged the loss from Saturday with a 3-1 win in Dallas Thursday night.

The Stars were looking to keep the momentum going after collecting eight of ten points on a long road trip that took them up the east coast and into Canada. The only loss was to the pesky Ottawa Senators and their newfound young goalie Leevi Merilainen.

Much like the Senators, Montreal has a young goalie that has come out of nowhere to already start setting records for one of the most storied franchises in all of sports. Jakub Dobes, the Czech born goaltender who was drafted in the fifth round out of Ohio State a few seasons ago, was the first Habs goalie to allow one goal in his first two starts combined, and had only allowed three total goals in his first three starts, which were all wins.

Though the Canadiens started out the year struggling mightily, the team has developed a strong identity as a young and skilled team with a clear structure to their defensive game, and they took the Stars all the way to to a shootout in the last contest tied 1-1.

Missing Roope Hintz for the game, Dallas was without three of their top six forwards with Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment already out for quite a while now.

On home ice, the Stars came out with noticeably more jump. Before the four minute mark, Jason Robertson cleaned up a huge rebound off a shot from Evgenii Dadonov to open the scoring. Celebrations for Robertson's 12th goal of the season did not last long, though, after Cole Caufield walked past Ilya Lyubushkin near the bench at the Stars blue line, beat Miro Heiskanen to the net and dished a perfect pass to Juraj Slafkovsky who put the puck into a yawning net.

The Stars had an opportunity to take the lead back when Michael Pezzetta took an unnecessary interference penalty giving Dallas the first power-play of the game. However, they did not produce much after Robertson hit the post while crashing the net. Jake Oettinger kept Dallas in it in the last couple minutes of the first frame when the Habs poured the pressure on and got several inner slot chances.

The Stars had a dominant second period, but did everything but score a goal, thanks in part to the youngster Dobes. Dallas got their second chance at a power-play six minutes into the second and they once again did not convert. At the halfway mark, the Stars took a penalty for too many men, which seemed like it would kill the offensive momentum Dallas had gained. Instead, Wyatt Johnston had two grade-A chances in front of the Montreal net for a short-handed goal but fired the puck wide.

The Stars continued their offensive onslaught, but Montreal came out unscathed despite Dallas outshooting the Canadiens 15-8 in the middle period.

After killing off the last of a Matt Dumba penalty to open the third period, Dallas once again kept putting pressure on Dobes and the Canadiens defense. Montreal stayed tied and made Dallas pay for not taking the lead when they had the chance, as Alex Newhook tipped a shot from breakout rookie defenseman Lane Hutson from just below shoulder height to right between the wickets of a still-standing Oettinger. Just like that, the Habs had their breakthrough goal and the first lead of the night at 2-1.

After that, Dallas seemed to run out of steam, unable to put more than a couple shots on Dobes and did not test him at all down the stretch needing a goal to tie the game. After over a minute with Oettinger pulled, Montreal gained possession and Joel Armia skated it down the ice to seal the game with an empty net goal and a 3-1 win went the way of the Canadiens.

Dallas now has little time to recover, as they have to head out to Colorado for an afternoon contest against the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday at 3 p.m. CST. Not only will they not have a full two days rest, Dallas will have to battle the altitude in a pivotal game that will greatly affect the Central Division standings.

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