The Montreal Canadiens are past the midpoint of July with three goaltenders still on their 2026-27 roster, a situation Montreal Gazette columnist Herb Zurkowsky flagged this week as the summer’s one unresolved piece of housekeeping. Sam Montembeault, Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler are all under contract. Only two of them can dress on a given night.
The pecking order is not really in dispute. Dobes finished last season as the club’s most trusted option and is expected to open 2026-27 as the starter. Fowler, who has climbed the organizational depth chart faster than Montreal projected when it drafted him, is the goaltender the Canadiens are building toward. Montembeault, who carries a $3.15 million cap hit into the final season of his contract before unrestricted free agency, is the one whose role has shrunk out from under him.
The problem is that the market moved without Montreal. When the offseason opened, a handful of teams looked like plausible landing spots for a starter-adjacent goaltender on an expiring deal at a reasonable number. Those teams have since solved their crease by other means, and the reporting out of Montreal is consistent on the result: there are fewer buyers now than Kent Hughes could have reasonably expected on July 1, and no deal appears close.
That leaves two workable outcomes and one awkward one. Montreal can open the season with Dobes and Montembeault in the NHL and send Fowler to Laval for the starts a young goaltender needs, which is the arrangement most observers now expect. It can move Montembeault for less than his value in a thin market. Or it can carry three goaltenders into October, burn a roster spot on a third-string netminder, and hope an injury elsewhere in the league creates a trade partner in November. Hughes has spent this summer being patient with prices; the third option is what patience costs if it does not break his way.
The fantasy read is straightforward and it favors Dobes, who should get the volume in a Montreal crease with no established veteran ahead of him and no clear timeline for Fowler’s promotion. Montembeault is a stash only in leagues deep enough to reward a possible midseason move to a team that needs starts; his standalone value in Montreal is a backup’s share of a young team’s wins. Fowler is a dynasty hold, not a 2026-27 contributor, unless the logjam resolves in a way that pushes him onto the NHL roster early.
