For the second consecutive series, the Montreal Canadiens found themselves heavily on their heels in a Game 7 on the road—and yet again, they managed to pull out the win thanks to two players in particular.
Jakub Dobes kept his team in the game for as long as he could before Alex Newhook came through with another clutch game-winning goal. Newhook will forever be remembered as the hero, but it was Dobes who stole the show, and his legend continued to grow both on and off the ice thanks to a brilliant postgame interview with Sportsnet’s Kyle Bukauskas.
“My mindset was just telling me, ‘Not now. No, not this time. They won’t score. Nope.’ So that was just my mentality for I don’t even know how many minutes… Me? Oh, I can play 40 more, yeah,”
He then spoke with ESPN and acknowledged them pegging the Canadiens as underdogs heading into Round 3 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
“We’ll be ready to go. I was listening to you guys, so it looks like we’re the underdogs, so that’s perfect—we love being the underdog,”
The 24-year-old Dobes stopped 37 of 39 shots in Montreal’s 3-2 overtime win over Buffalo in Game 7, bringing his playoff totals to 8-6-0 with a 2.52 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage through two rounds.
After a rough outing in Game 6, where he was pulled in the third period, Dobes stood on his head with Montreal’s season on the line and willed his team to victory. Had it not been for his heroics, the Sabres might have won Game 7 in regulation, given the way they controlled much of the second and third periods.
It won’t get any easier for Dobes and the Canadiens, however, as they now head to Carolina in preparation for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final on Thursday night at 8 p.m. EST.
Next: Tage Thompson Downplays Experience Factor Heading Into Game 7
