Both the Montreal Canadiens and the Pittsburgh Penguins had their routines impacted by a traffic collision before their Thursday night game in Pittsburgh. Some Penguins players couldn’t make it to the game at the scheduled time. The result was that they had to delay the start by half an hour. That impacted the Canadiens as well, who were ready to play their best in front of their new goaltender, Jacob Fowler.
The Canadiens posted a 4-2 win and Fowler was outstanding.
Wilde Horses
Fowler believes that Dec. 11, 2025 is the day that he worked for his entire life. When a player trains every day, rising through the ranks, working on his craft, D-Day isn’t an overwhelming time. It’s the time they always believed was coming. It’s the preparation of their lives, and they’re ready for it.
Emotionally, they are ready. However, at 21, their training is simply not complete at the NHL level. Goalies need more time than a couple of dozen games in the minors. It’s an extremely rare case that a goalie is ready just two years after draft day.
Sebastian Cossa was taken 15th overall in the 2021 draft by the Detroit Red Wings. He remains in the American Hockey League for a fourth season. He is 23. His save percentage is a sparkling .935.
Yaroslav Askarov was drafted 11th in 2020. Five years later, he is finally experiencing his first measure of success in the NHL with a modest save percentage of .903.
Spencer Knight is finally tasting success in Chicago six seasons after being drafted. He is one of the top goalies in the league at the age of 24. That’s when it usually happens — at 24.
Devon Levi put in stunningly good numbers in every league he played in, but in the NHL, Levi has failed to stick in Buffalo. The work remains in front of him. He shouldn’t be discouraged. He’s only 23, and his timing is perfectly normal.
This history of recent top-ranked goalies not landing at the age of 21 is listed as a reminder that if Fowler has it in him to succeed already, then he is a massive outlier. Michael Hrabal was drafted one round ahead of Fowler. Hrabal is still at U Mass-Amherst. Trey Augustine was also drafted the same year as Fowler and he is at Michigan State University.
At the moment, the Canadiens brass doesn’t need Fowler to be amazing. They just need him to do a nice, calm .900 save percentage. In a normal 30-shot game, that’s three goals against. That’s all they need because dating back to Nov. 28, they’ve been getting this: .786 .769 .778 .957 .938 .828 .806.
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Fowler gave them .947. He stopped 36 shots out of 38. His goals saved above expected was +3.15. Fowler was sensational. It was his positioning that stood out compared with the other two goaltenders recently. He didn’t slide too far. He wasn’t out of position for the rebound.
He was prepared and in position for every single shot he faced. He looked like a well-trained goalie. He smothered long shots instead of letting them go for dangerous rebounds. Killing the play seemed to lead to a massive improvement in how the defensive posture felt.
There were many other positives, the biggest being that the change in defensive pairings worked tremendously. The best defender on the team, Mike Matheson, got Alexandre Carrier and it stabilized life for the diminutive Carrier. Lane Hutson moved back to the left side, getting Noah Dobson as a partner, which was a better balance. Hutson could play freely knowing a steady Dobson was covering for him.
The third pair was Jayden Struble and Adam Engstrom, with Engstrom the stronger of the two. Engstrom deserves to get a much longer look, playing as well as he did in this one. He skated well. His decision-making was strong. He looked comfortable.
Scoring-wise, it was Alexandre Texier with a terrific wrist shot far side, Brendan Gallagher upstairs with a one-timer, Cole Caufield with a shot from behind the net where he purposely shot it off the inside of the leg of Tristan Jarry, and Juraj Slafkovsky with a gorgeous pass to Oliver Kapanen. Hutson had two assists, as did Slafkovsky.
Wilde Goats
The Canadiens must learn to be more conservative when they lead. It was 3-0 when the Canadiens allowed a three-on-one and a breakaway in two minutes in the second period.
Slafkovsky had a chance to clear it with two minutes left in the second, but he made a cross-ice pass inside the blue line instead. The result was that the Penguins’ pressure continued.
Up three goals, there are rules: Don’t allow odd-man rushes. Clear the puck out of your zone every chance you get. Get on the defensive side of the puck. Don’t take lazy penalties, or emotional penalties.
No one is suggesting going into a shell, but playing smart up three means the game is boring. It’s not an exchange of high-danger chances.
Wilde Cards
The classic analogy applies: Don’t miss the forest for the trees. The mood is so strongly negative that everyone is so focused on small details that they have lost track of the bigger picture.
The bigger picture remains powerfully positive. Any discussion must start with the fact that this is the second fastest rebuild this century behind only the Toronto Maple Leafs ashes to playoffs in two years led by Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.
The Canadiens made it to the playoffs in year three after hitting rock bottom. They remain firmly en route to continuing that success. The most difficult part of a rebuild is acquiring the top half of the roster that matters most. It is essentially the forest.
That forest of top-end talent includes Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Ivan Demidov, Mike Matheson, Noah Dobson, Kaiden Guhle and Lane Hutson. The possible expansion of that top end includes Alex Newhook, Kirby Dach and Oliver Kapanen, already with NHL experience. It also includes the expected arrival of Alexander Zharovsky, Michael Hage, David Reinbacher and Jacob Fowler.
This is a remarkably beautiful forest, so we need to stop staring at that ugly, dying tree of some of the worst goaltending ever seen at the Bell Centre. In fact, statistically, it is the very worst. Jose Theodore, Cristobal Huet, Jeff Hackett, Mathieu Garon and even David Aebischer put in better numbers. In fact, the worst of the regulars, Aebischer, was .900 in 32 games in 2007. This, right now, is epically bad goaltending in Montreal. In fact, it may just be the worst in team history. Even the oft-cited Andre Red Light Racicot had an .880 in his career. Sam Montembeault dreams of an .880 right now.
The rebuild is right on course. The weaknesses are the least difficult weaknesses to correct. The first is the obvious. They need saves. Fowler is that hope. Goaltending is so fickle. Weakness like this can change fast. Solutions come out of nowhere, though the organization hopes the solution is Fowler.
The second sick tree right now is the back six of the forwards. When Dach and Newhook return, coupled with the expectation that Zharovsky and Hage bring, the top nine will be unrivalled. However, the final three forwards eventually all have to be punishing, powerful, gritty players who hurt defenders on every dump-in on the attack. All that skill has to be balanced with a ferocious and angry fourth-line attitude that brings tenacity to the entire lineup.
Management long ago came to the conclusion that muscle wins in the playoffs and this roster has to get more. The only place a lack of size is acceptable is on the top half of a roster. Skill must stand out, or there is no place for a small player. Caufield and Hutson are excellent examples of this. Alex Carrier, and perhaps Jake Evans, are not. Small can’t fill out a roster. Check the depth chart of all strong NHL teams for the painful truth about size.
The changes are not that difficult. Fourth-line players and third-pair defenders arrive for third-rounders at the trading deadline, and for a modest price on the free agent market. The goalie will also eventually come.
The forest is a beautiful shade of thick and deep green. The Canadiens just need to get an ugly tree or two staring them right in the face taken care of.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.
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