Jacob Fowler isn't hiding his frustration. Five days after the Canadiens sent him to Laval, the 21-year-old goaltender went public with it.
"I started camp like everyone else. I wanted to make the team," he said after Friday night's game with the Rocket.
"Obviously, I wasn't happy with the conversation we had."
He didn't stop there. "I feel like I did enough to make the team, but it doesn't seem to be the case."
That's a top prospect openly questioning a Kent Hughes call, on the record, the same night his AHL season opened.
The organization decided Samuel Montembeault deserved the backup job behind Jakub Dobes this season. Fowler got the short drive to Laval instead.
Dobes, for his part, won the season opener in Toronto with a .929 save percentage in a 3-2 victory.
Samuel Montembeault now has a 21-year-old breathing down his neck
Fowler answered on the ice. He was dominant in a 2-0 loss to the Syracuse Crunch, facing 31 shots.
He set the tone right away, shutting down a 2-on-1 in the opening minutes.
The second period was his showcase. Two breakaways, two stops, and without him the Rocket's night turns ugly in a hurry.
Think of a line cook told he's not ready for the head chef job, then plating the best dish in the kitchen that night. Hard to ignore.
It was also Daniel Jacob's first game as Laval's head coach. The 46-year-old landed the job in July, replacing Pascal Vincent, now an assistant with the Seattle Kraken.
Jacob's first assignment, apparently, includes managing a goalie who believes he belongs one level up.
Now the money. Montembeault carries a $3,150,000 cap hit at 29, while Dobes sits at $965,000.
You don't park that kind of cap hit in the minors lightly, especially for a 1-0-0 team trying to protect a good start.
The Canadiens got this call right. A 21-year-old goalie learns more stopping pucks every night in Laval than watching from the end of the bench in Montreal.
But saying it on the record? That part was a mistake, and it hands Martin St-Louis' staff a storyline nobody asked for this early.
Heading into tonight's game, the Canadiens visit a Penguins team coming off a 7-0 rout of the Flyers.
If Montembeault stumbles early, the noise from Laval gets louder. How long can Montreal keep that door shut with a goalie this hungry, and this vocal, waiting on the other side?
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Was Jacob Fowler right to publicly question the Canadiens' decision to send him to Laval?
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