2025-26 Depth Assessment: Goalies

Now that the dust has largely settled on the offseason activity, it’s a good time to assess Montreal’s organizational depth.  As always, we begin with the goaltenders.

NHL

Signed: Jakub Dobes, Samuel Montembeault, Carey Price
RFAs: None
UFAs: None

Let’s start with Price.  He’s in the final year of his contract and is owed a $5.5 million signing bonus on September 1st.  At that point, he’ll be down to a $2 million salary, a big chunk of which is covered by insurance.  Once the bonus is paid out, there’s an outside chance that he’ll be tradeable (with the Habs having to incentivize a team to take him).  If that happens, they’ll get out of LTIR and operate like a normal-spending team.  Otherwise, they’ll be in LTIR for the upcoming season and carrying over a big bonus overage penalty once again.  So even with him not playing, Price impacts this roster for next season.

Montembeault is entering the second season of a three-year contract that looks like a team-friendly one at a $3.15 million price tag.  Is he at the level of a top-notch starter?  No.  But he has shown slow but steady improvement each year and while he was overworked way too much last season, he managed to get through 62 games.  In a perfect world, that’s closer to 50-55 for a starter but surviving his first taste of a true number one workload is a good sign.  I’m not sure that he’s part of the long-term plans for this group but for where they are in their rebuild, he’s fine as the top option.

Dobes wasn’t supposed to be in this section.  Not yet, at least.  But Cayden Primeau’s struggles forced the Canadiens to test Dobes earlier than planned.  He got off to a great start and while he faded closer to the end of the year, he did alright in his first taste of NHL action.  At 24, he still has some developmental runway in him and he’s waiver-exempt for another season which could come in handy at times if they want to send him down for some extra starts periodically.  There’s some risk going into the season with him as the full-fledged backup but Dobes has earned the opportunity.

Needs Assessment: Low – Is this Montreal’s long-term tandem between the pipes?  Probably not but Montembeault is set as the starter for the next little while and they need to see if Dobes is a potential longer-term option for them.  With playoff hopes, there’s some risk here but no realistic way to get a meaningful upgrade either.

AHL

Signed: Jacob Fowler, Kaapo Kahkonen
RFAs: None
UFAs: None
AHL Contracts: Benjamin Gaudreau, Hunter Jones
AHL Free Agents: Joe Vrbetic

Kahkonen was brought in to replace Primeau whose rights were traded to Carolina earlier this month.  While he received a one-way deal, it’s no coincidence that his $1.15 million salary is the maximum that can come off the books from being sent down.  He has enough experience that he can be serviceable as an NHL backup if needed (if Dobes falters or gets sent down to get a couple of starts in) while his performance down the stretch and in the playoffs with Charlotte provides hope that he can be an above-average netminder with the Rocket.

Fowler was once again lights-out in college, playing well enough for the Habs to get him to forego the final two years of eligibility and turn pro.  He got a handful of games in with Laval including some up-and-down playoff performances but it’s not fair to glean much from that.  Fowler has the upside to be a game-changing goalie in Laval but not all goalies develop at the same pace.  He could make an impact right away or it could take some time.  Kahkonen helps as insurance but Fowler is a big wild card heading into next season.

Laval has already lost Connor Hughes (Lausanne) and Luke Cavallin (Boston) so their depth has taken a bit of a hit.  Jones was with Trois-Rivieres last season while Vrbetic (whose NHL rights with Montreal have lapsed) was a late-season add for the Lions.  Jones re-signed last week after testing free agency, getting half of that tandem in place while Gaudreau, who played for Canada at the World Juniors not long ago, was just brought in to be the other goalie.

Needs Assessment: Low – With what should be (pending waiver clearance) Kahkonen and Fowler in goal, Laval’s in good shape.  With Gaudreau and Jones set to play in Trois-Rivieres as well, they’re set unless they want a third goalie.

Other Prospects

A by-product of what I like to call the ‘dart-throw’ approach that Montreal takes with drafting their goalies is that they need to draft a lot of them to have one or two hit.  Boy, have they done that.  Let’s skip the rest of the preamble and get right into it as we’ll be here a while.

One of the later-drafted players sits atop this list for me, Russian netminder Yevgeni Volokhin.  He was dominant in the MHL in 2023-24 and eventually earned a promotion to the KHL where he was sent to Sochi, a team that seems to exist for other teams to beat up on.  He was overwhelmed early but was giving them some competitive efforts by the end, even if the record wasn’t there.  Now with a better team moving forward, he should have some more success this season.  He’s still very much a long-term project but if I’m picking a goalie out of this group that has an NHL shot, Volokhin’s tools push me to pick him.

Arseni Radkov is the earliest-drafted of the players in this section, going in the third round last month which was an earlier pick than a lot of people probably would have predicted.  He’s big, athletic, and really raw, making him nowhere near pro-ready.  He will make the jump to the QMJHL this coming season after Blainville-Boisbriand took him in the CHL Import Draft and he’s committed to UMass for 2026-27.  He’s another long-term project (get used to seeing this phrase) but most of his development moving forward should come in North America.  This is a ‘check back in three years’ pick.

Quentin Miller was supposed to be a key piece for Rimouski last season, the Memorial Cup hosts.  Then he suffered a preseason shoulder injury and got waived out of the league.  He salvaged the year with a good showing with BCHL Chilliwack including a long playoff run and now he’s off to a good college program at Denver.  If Miller can secure the starting role and run with it, there could be something there yet.  But with only two more years of his rights, the pressure’s on him a bit more than the others.

Alexis Cournoyer was an interesting case heading into this draft.  In his second year of eligibility, he only made it to the QMJHL level for the first time midseason after putting up middling numbers in the MJAHL.  And then he was nothing short of dominant in 21 games, earning him a fifth-round pick by Montreal last month.  A big, athletic netminder, he’s behind the curve in his development simply in terms of exposure to higher-level talent and is off to Cornell next season making him, you guessed it, a long-term project.

Emmett Croteau has already been around for three years after being the dart throw in the sixth round in 2022.  Big, athletic, toolsy, and a long-term development curve, making him, well, you know.  After barely playing in 2023-24 at Clarkson, Croteau transferred to Dartmouth and was in a platoon situation, being the better performer of the two netminders.  That provides a bit of cause for optimism although he’s down to just two years of NCAA eligibility remaining with less than one year’s worth of games.  Some progress is good but he has a long way to go.

Then there’s Mikus Vecvanags and yes, he’s another one of them.  A fifth-round pick last year after a decent showing at the World Under-18s, last season was a complete write-off.  He started with BCHL Brooks and barely played, then transferred to QMJHL Acadie-Bathurst midseason and played sparingly with them while struggling considerably.  He’s not college-bound until 2026-27 (Maine) meaning that out of all of the long-term projects the Habs have, he could be the longest-term of them all, depending on whether the pending CBA changes for player rights in 2026 are only for newly-drafted players or if they’re applied retroactively.  Under the former, Montreal could have his rights for four years after next season versus two if it’s the latter.

Needs Assessment: Low – The volume is there while the quality of this group is largely a giant question mark.  But when you have this strategy, you’re going to be picking a goalie or two every year.  The Habs don’t need to trade for anyone but don’t be at all surprised when they grab another netminder at some point in the 2026 draft.  All they need is one or two of these players to reach their potential for this strategy to work and they should get that out of this group.