Sam Montembeault finding his form, steals a point for Canadiens in loss to Flyers

MONTREAL — Sam Montembeault felt both sides of playing in a hockey-crazed city Tuesday night.

Montreal fans sarcastically cheered when the Canadiens were down 3-0, applauding after the goalie stopped a routine Noah Cates dump-in from the red line with 4:59 left in the first period.

But midway through the third, the Bell Centre was belting out “Mon-ty! Mon-ty!” in genuine glee.

The Canadiens lost 5-4 in a shootout to the Philadelphia Flyers, but Montembeault helped them steal a point by rebounding from a poor start for 38 saves.

“Not the start I would have liked,” Montembeault said. “But after, I was happy that I was able to stay in the game and battle through it.

“And honestly, after that, getting a lot of shots, it’s probably the best I’ve felt technically since the beginning of the year.”

Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis lauded his goalie’s composure amid the fans’ swings in opinion about his work.

“That’s kind of the market, right? Highs and lows,” St. Louis said.

“Sometimes you have to deal with lows because on the other side, the highs are so high. When I hear that, I definitely have empathy as a coach, and I hope he’s able to trust his training and stay in his bubble. It’s not easy.”

A key cog in Montreal’s unexpected run to the playoffs last season, Montembeault has struggled to begin the 2025-26 campaign.

The 29-year-old from Becancour, Que., has a 3.67 goals-against and an .855 save percentage in seven starts. His backup Jakub Dobes is a perfect 6-0-0 with a 1.97 GAA and .930 save percentage.

The goalie situation has filled airwaves on Montreal sports talk radio in recent weeks, but St. Louis has repeatedly backed up Montembeault, including Tuesday morning.

“You just need that position to be solid. Sometimes you’re going to have one guy that takes the workload way more, and I anticipate Monty to take that workload,” the coach said.

“We’re trying to help him feel good about his game so he can take that workload. And I feel like another game today, I feel he can gain some rhythm and hopefully that helps him.”

That didn’t happen in the game’s first eight minutes as Philadelphia jumped out to a 3-0 lead.

Bobby Brink opened the scoring on the first shot of the game, deflecting a hard pass from Travis Sanheim past Montembeault at 1:56 of the first period.

The Flyers then struck twice on the power play after going on a 5-on-3.

Cam York one-timed a feed from Trevor Zegras with the two-man advantage at 7:07, then Brink buried his second at the side of the net 43 seconds later for Philadelphia’s third goal on six shots.

Montembeault looked to the bench at that point, but saw no signs of Dobes entering the game.

“My head was spinning a lot, that’s for sure,” Montembeault said. “I was thinking a lot, but there was nothing I could do. It was 3-0 and I just tried to breathe and stay in the game. Martin let me stay in so I just took advantage.”

“I wasn’t considering it at the time,” St. Louis said of a possible goalie switch. “First shot he sees, a high tip, and then it’s a power play, five on three.

“The easiest thing for me to do — would have (been to pull) him. I felt like ‘let’s see how we can correct ourselves for the rest of the period.’”

The Canadiens crawled to the end of the first period, but exploded for four goals in the second when Montembeault shut the door with Canadian Olympic team general manager Doug Armstrong watching from the press box.

Kirby Dach scored twice, Ivan Demidov had a goal and an assist and Nick Suzuki also scored as Montreal (9-3-1) took a 4-3 lead into the third period. Montembeault denied multiple point-blank chances by Christian Dvorak late in the second.

“He played a hell of a second period,” St. Louis said. “It may be the kind of game Monty needed to bounce back.”

Nikita Grebenkin tied it with 9:09 left in the third to end a streak of 31 consecutive saves by Montreal’s netminder. Zegras scored the shootout winner.

“Resilient by him to honestly steal us a point there,” Canadiens defenceman Lane Hutson said of his goalie. “He faced a lot of shots and, when you go down 3-0 early, it’s tough to stay in the game, but he did and battled for us, and we wish we got the result for him.”

Flyers goalie Dan Vladar faced just 20 shots, while Montembeault was peppered with 42.

“He’s so calm, always. No matter pucks are going in or pucks aren’t going in,” Montreal defenceman Noah Dobson said.

“He did a great job keeping us in it all night and giving us a chance to find a way to get a win. And we weren’t able to do that, but we’ll take the point and move on.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2025.