Fantasy Focus: Samuel Montembeault

In his first season as the unopposed starter in Montreal, Samuel Montembeault continued his slow and steady improvement.  With expectations now higher heading into 2025-26, will he stay on that same trajectory?

2024-25

Montembeault’s tendency the previous couple of years was starting off well and then slowing down as the season went on.  That got put to the test early as instead of being eased into things, he was playing almost every night.  Part of that was Martin St. Louis not wanting to have his team fall too far out of the playoff race early and part of it was Cayden Primeau struggling mightily.  It’s fair to say there was some fatigue early on with his save percentage in the first quarter checking in at .899 and the second quarter .896.  With the league-wide save percentages dropping, this was still at least around league average.

But the arrival and early success of Jakub Dobes allowed Montreal to lighten Montembeault’s workload just a little bit and that helped in the second half of the season (as did a stint at the 4 Nations Face-Off where Montembeault was the practice goalie but still got some rest).  The result was a jump to a .903 SV% in the third quarter of the season and then .906 in the final quarter with the netminder saving his best performance for last, helping lead the Habs to the playoffs.  Of course, Montembeault was injured partway through Game Three of the Washington series and didn’t play after that.

One concern I’ve had with him over his tenure with Montreal was the frequency of really bad starts.  There was a lot of good but too many bad ones to move him into that next tier of goalies.  If we say anything at or below .870 SV% is the barometer for a really bad game, he had 17 of those outings last season.  (If we put .880 as the marker, it jumps to 22.)  Every goalie is going to have some off nights but when your clunker percentage is between 27% and 35%, that’s an area that can be improved upon as that percentage range is above league average among starters.

On the flip side, he was one of the NHL’s top netminders in Goals Saved Above Expected, per MoneyPuck.  He finished fifth in the league in that category last season, checking in at 24.6.  For comparison, he was at 3.3 the year before.  That was quite the improvement which played a big role in the Canadiens getting to the playoffs.

Season Stats: 62 GP, 31-24-7 record, 4 SO, 2.82 GAA, .901 SV%
Playoff Stats: 3 GP, 0-2-0 record, 0 SO, 2.76 GAA, .908 SV%

4-Year Averages

(With Montembeault only being a full-time NHL player for the four seasons he played in Montreal, we’ll only look at those for the basis of comparison.)

GP: 45
W: 18
L: 19
OTL: 6
SO: 1
GAA: 3.21
SV%: .899

2025-26 Role

Despite the inconsistency at times, Montembeault’s first season as the undisputed starter with the Habs went pretty well.  While Dobes played well early on, he’s not in a position to really start pushing for extra playing time, at least to a significant degree.  The net is Montembeault’s and there isn’t going to be any sort of training camp battle for the position.

For him, the question is simple.  What is the right amount of starts?  Going into last season, his previous career high was 40.  It jumped to 60 in 2024-25.  Part of that was the struggles or general lack of faith in their backup goalie and part of it was necessity with the Canadiens heading into the final game of the regular season without having clinched.

Here’s the list of other goalies who made at least 60 starts last season: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Connor Hellebuyck, Igor Shesterkin, and Ilya Sorokin.  With all due respect to Montembeault, he’s not at that level.  60 starts is on the higher side of the league for a reason and in a perfect world, that’s a number that would come down by a few.  Karel Vejmelka, Joey Daccord, and Jordan Binnington all made either 54 or 55 starts last season and that’s more the tier that Montembeault fits in talent-wise at this point.  But even with that, he’s starting two out of three games, making his role one of the easiest to predict on the team.

Projected Stats

While goaltending is an individual position, it’s one that is obviously affected by the other players on the ice, especially the defence.  And frankly, that’s a bit of a wild card this year.  Noah Dobson comes in for David Savard and that’s certainly a net upgrade.  But is there room for other improvement?  A full season of Alexandre Carrier should help but with most of the rest of the group (aside from Mike Matheson) being 25 or younger, things get a little murkier.  There’s certainly potential for multiple players to take a big step forward defensively but development isn’t linear and sometimes, young defenders take a step back unexpectedly.  There’s room for optimism that this group can be a lot better but it can’t be expected either.

The other wild card is the penalty kill.  Last year, the Canadiens had a top-ten unit but have now lost several key contributors on it who are projected to be replaced by players who either aren’t as good killing penalties or don’t have much of a track record shorthanded.  It is quite possible (I’d go as far as saying it’s probable) that the penalty killing unit is going to take a step back this year.  The player who might feel that the most is Montembeault who will probably face more shots and allow more goals at four-on-five than he did last season.

Given Montembeault’s recent track record of incremental improvement and the two big wild cards noted above, I think there’s room for another small step forward but nothing too significant.  He’s currently 20th in goalie ADP on Yahoo which feels reasonable.  If you think Montreal is a playoff team, he might be closer to 15th and if they’re in bubble territory, 20th overall for goalies is right within that range.  He’s not someone I’d be reaching to grab but once you get into the late teens for goalies left, he’s a more than reasonable selection.

GP: 56
W: 28
L: 20
OTL: 8
SO: 3
GAA: 2.75
SV%: .904