Samuel Montembeault Trade Talk Is Real. He Just Blanked the Leafs

A Samuel Montembeault trade is the league's most obvious next move

A Samuel Montembeault trade has gone from offseason speculation to something close to an expectation. Frank Seravalli, speaking on the Jason Gregor Show, predicted that the Montreal Canadiens goaltender will be the first player moved this season — not the first player moved at the deadline, the first player moved, full stop. That is a specific claim, and the circumstances back it up. Montreal has three goaltenders it likes, two jobs, and a general manager who has said out loud that the current arrangement is a camp solution rather than a season solution.

Kent Hughes has been direct about it: Montreal can open training camp carrying three goalies, but he does not want that when the games count. The way Montreal has organized its camp says the same thing louder than a quote does. Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler have been skating in the club's Group A. Montembeault has been in Group B alongside Kaapo Kahkonen. In a camp where everyone is reading tea leaves, that is not a subtle signal.

For Toronto, this is an Atlantic Division story before it is a goaltending story. The Canadiens open the Maple Leafs' season at Scotiabank Arena on Sept. 29. Whatever Montreal converts a surplus goaltender into — a right-shot defenceman, a middle-six forward, a pick that becomes one of those things in March — lands in the same division Toronto has to climb out of.

Thirteen saves against Toronto, at exactly the right moment

Montembeault picked a useful night to look like himself. In the Scotiabank Arena half of Saturday's split-squad doubleheader on Sept. 19, he stopped all 13 shots he faced before Kahkonen relieved him midway through the second period and made 11 saves of his own. Montreal won that game 4-1. It also won the Bell Centre half 4-3 in overtime, sweeping the doubleheader against a Toronto group that could not generate much against David Reinbacher and a Canadiens defence that looked organized in September.

Thirteen preseason saves do not move a trade market on their own. What they do is remove the last easy objection. A team calling Hughes about Montembeault wants to know the 30-year-old is healthy and engaged rather than sulking his way through a camp he does not want to be in. He answered that question in front of scouts from every organization, in a building where people were paying attention.

Toronto's own night was covered in more detail in our look at Gavin McKenna's preseason debut, and the short version is that the Leafs' best group got handled. Montembeault was part of why.

The 2025-26 season is the problem, and it is a real one

Here is the honest version of Montembeault's market. He went 10-8-4 with a 3.43 goals-against average and a .872 save percentage in 25 regular-season appearances in 2025-26. That save percentage ranked 57th in the NHL. It is not a number that gets a goaltender a raise, and it is the reason a player who was Canada's third goalie at the 2025 Four Nations Face-Off is now the third goalie on his own club.

Two things can be true. That season was bad, and it was also played behind a team in transition, in a role that shrank as Dobes established himself and Fowler arrived. Goaltending save percentages in the .870s are usually a mix of performance and circumstance, and the acquiring team is betting on the circumstance half.

The contract makes that bet cheap. Montembeault carries a $3.15 million cap hit with only the 2026-27 season remaining before unrestricted free agency. There is no term risk. A club that needs a competent 1B for one year is not committing to anything it cannot walk away from next July.

Why the Maple Leafs are not the buyer here

Let us close this door before anyone opens it. Toronto is not in on Montembeault, and should not be. John Chayka spent his first summer rebuilding the crease from the studs. Sergei Bobrovsky signed a three-year, $21 million contract on July 1. Anthony Stolarz is under contract and made his own case in the split-squad games. Joseph Woll was traded to Philadelphia with Simon Benoit in June, Samuel Ersson was flipped to Ottawa for a 2027 fifth-round pick ten days after arriving, and Dennis Hildeby went to Tampa Bay in the Nick Paul deal.

That is not an accident. Chayka deliberately cleared the depth behind his tandem because Artur Akhtyamov, the Marlies' Calder Cup playoff MVP, is close. Adding a 30-year-old with an expiring deal would undo the entire sequence. We went through the tandem math in detail in our breakdown of the Bobrovsky-Stolarz arrangement, and nothing about Montembeault improves it.

There is also the roster arithmetic. Toronto is already pressed against both the cap and the 50-contract limit, which we covered in why Chayka has to subtract before he adds. Every dollar and every contract slot is spoken for. You can track the commitments on our contracts page.

Who actually needs him

The buyers are the clubs with one goaltender they trust and nothing behind him. That list changes weekly in September because it is written in injuries, but the structural version is stable: teams carrying a young starter who cannot play 55 games, and teams whose planned 1B did not survive camp.

What Montreal can realistically extract is a mid-round pick, or a prospect a tier below the ones that get written about. Expiring backup goaltenders with a .872 behind them do not return first-round picks. Hughes knows that. The value of the deal for Montreal is not the asset coming back — it is the roster spot, the cap space, and giving Dobes and Fowler a clean split without a veteran looking over their shoulders.

Seravalli's prediction is really a prediction about urgency. Every other club sorting out its goaltending will make its decision in the next week. If Hughes waits until November, the market thins and he is dealing from weakness.

What this says about the Atlantic

Montreal spent the summer consolidating. Chris Kreider signed there, which we wrote about when Montreal locked down its core. Lane Hutson is the engine of the blue line. Ivan Demidov and Cole Caufield give them finish. Now they are in the enviable position of trading from surplus rather than filling a hole.

Contrast that with Toronto, which spent its summer patching. The Leafs added Jack Roslovic, Colton Sissons, Teddy Blueger and Brandon Duhaime in free agency and traded for Nick Paul and Darren Raddysh. Those are useful players. They are not the same thing as depth you can sell.

The Atlantic did not get easier while Toronto was rebuilding. Florida added Brady Tkachuk and Jacob Markstrom. Tampa Bay projects near the top. The full picture is in our Atlantic reload breakdown, and you can follow the race as it develops on our standings page.

What's next

Montreal plays out the preseason with three goaltenders and makes its decision before rosters are due. NHL clubs have to be compliant by the same deadline Toronto is working toward, which we laid out in our look at the Leafs' final week of camp. If Seravalli is right, the Montembeault trade happens inside that window.

Watch for a club with a goaltending injury in the next seven days. That is the trigger. Montreal does not need to force this, and a September injury elsewhere turns a mid-round pick into a slightly better mid-round pick.

For Leafs fans, the only real stake is what comes back. Montreal is a division rival with a young core, a settled crease and an asset it does not need. That is the position Toronto would like to be in, and is not.