Montembeault, who began this season as backup to Jakub Dobes, appeared to injure his right leg or right groin during one of the final drills at CN Sports Complex. He headed to the dressing room, giving way to emergency backup goaltender Nicolas Ruccia.<\/p>\n
Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis did not provide an update on Montembeault\u2019s condition, simply saying that he was continuing to be evaluated.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Montembeault of B\u00e9cancour, Que., was expected to make his first start of the season Thursday night when the Canadiens host the Nashville Predators, but Fowler’s recall indicated that was unlikely to happen.<\/p>\n
Fowler played 17 NHL games last season, registering a 9-6-2 record with a 2.43 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage. The 21-year-old American then backed up Dobes through the playoffs as Montembeault struggled in the crease.<\/p>\n
Early in the AHL season, Fowler has allowed three goals in two games on 55 shots.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens ranked 30th in the NHL with 4.67 goals allowed per game heading into Wednesday\u2019s action. Starting in all three games so far, Dobes has posted a 1-1-1 record, 4.43 goals-against average and .857 save percentage.<\/p>\n
The Czech netminder is far from solely responsible for the Canadiens\u2019 defensive struggles. The team allowed four goals in an ugly second period en route to a 6-5 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday. The Canadiens then committed several turnovers and lost too many battles, according to St. Louis, in a 6-4 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens had nevertheless emphasized their defensive play during training camp, and St. Louis did not appear amused when asked about the team\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are where we are, and we\u2019re going to keep trying to get better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Defenceman Alexandre Carrier was a little more receptive when asked to discuss the team\u2019s progress defensively, although he did not immediately want to put a number on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I can give you an exact number. But honestly, it\u2019s going in the right direction. Personally, I feel much more comfortable with the adjustments we\u2019ve made, whether it\u2019s on the penalty kill or at even strength,\u201d Carrier said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important, because to win a championship, you have to play well defensively every game.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we can still improve, but it\u2019s going in the right direction. Let\u2019s say we\u2019re at 60 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montembeault, who began this season as backup to Jakub Dobes, appeared to injure his right leg or right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-924609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}