Martin St-Louis made a phone call from the bench that nobody understood at first
Martin St-Louis revealed Thursday night that he nearly pulled Jakub Dobes in Game 5, then made a single phone call from the bench that changed everything.
The Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres 6-3 in Buffalo to take a 3-2 series lead, but the story behind the win lives in those first few minutes.
Dobes gave up three goals on the first four shots. Most coaches yank the goalie right there. St-Louis didn't.
Instead, the head coach picked up the bench phone and called his goaltending staff for one quick read on the kid.
The answer came back fast: leave him in. St-Louis did.
What followed was one of the cleanest goalie performances of the Canadiens' postseason run.
Why a 24-year-old in his second NHL season just stole Game 5
Dobes finished with 33 saves on 36 shots and the win. After that nightmare opening, he stopped everything Buffalo threw at him.
This is the same goaltender carrying a .901 save percentage and 20 wins across 43 regular-season games. Not a finished product. Not even close.
But the Canadiens just handed him the most important game of the spring, and he answered.
St-Louis made a point of crediting his staff publicly, naming goalie coach Marco Marciano as the voice that made the call. Empowering the experts, he said.
That's a small detail with a big tell. A coach in his first deep playoff run trusting the people around him instead of his own gut.
The Canadiens went 2-2 against the Sabres in the regular season. None of that matters now.
Game 6 lands Saturday at the Bell Centre. Montreal can close it out at home with a young goaltender who just survived the worst three minutes of his playoff career.
The question hanging over Saturday night isn't whether Dobes can handle the moment. He already did. It's whether Lindy Ruff has any answers left for a building that's about to be very loud.
And if Dobes wobbles again, does St-Louis pick up the same phone, or does he finally make that call himself?
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YESTERDAY
MAY 14, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Nick Suzuki | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Ivan Demidov | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Mitch Marner | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Phillip Danault | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Josh Anderson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Josh Doan | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mikael Granlund | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Konsta Helenius | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jason Zucker | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Leo Carlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||