{"id":352851,"date":"2025-12-17T00:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T00:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352851\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T00:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T00:53:07","slug":"canadiens-send-montembeault-to-ahl-on-conditioning-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352851\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens send Montembeault to AHL on conditioning assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Montreal Canadiens<\/a> sent Sam Montembeault, who began the season as the team’s No. 1 goalie, to the American Hockey League’s Laval Rocket on a conditioning assignment Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Rocket said he would join the team in Cleveland and practise Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s game against the Monsters.<\/p>\n

Per the NHL-NHLPA collective bargaining agreement, Montembeault, who’s on a one-way contract, would have had to agree to the conditioning loan, which cannot extend past 14 days.<\/p>\n

Montembeault has struggled to a 5-6-1 record with a 3.65 goals-against average and .857 save percentage after becoming a solid starter over the past two seasons and featuring on Canada\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off roster last February.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old from Becancour, Que., last started on Dec. 2 in a 5-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators, giving up five goals on 29 shots in an ugly defensive performance for the Canadiens.<\/p>\n

He then entered in relief for Jakub Dobes<\/a> in a 6-1 defeat to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Dec. 9, allowing three goals on 13 shots.<\/p>\n

The poor showing from both goalies this season \u2014 and that night \u2014 prompted the call-up of goalie prospect Jacob Fowler from Laval.<\/p>\n

Fowler was set to make his third career start, and first in Montreal, Tuesday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old American made 36 saves in his debut, helping the Canadiens win 4-2 over the Pittsburgh Penguins last Thursday. He then lost his first game Saturday as Montreal squandered a 3-0 lead in a 5-4 overtime defeat to the New York Rangers.<\/p>\n

Dobes made 27 saves in Montreal’s 4-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday.<\/p>\n

In other news, the Canadiens announced defenceman Mike Matheson was day-to-day with an upper-body injury and would miss Tuesday’s game.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old from Pointe-Claire, Que., has four goals and 12 assists in 32 games this season. He also leads the Canadiens with an average ice time of 24 minutes 54 seconds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Montreal Canadiens sent Sam Montembeault, who began the season as the team’s No. 1 goalie, to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-352851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}