After a year of goaltending turmoil in 2015-16 following Carey Price’s season-ending knee injury, Marc Bergevin made it a priority to bring in an experienced backup goaltender for the 2016-17 campaign.
Montoya entered his first season in Montreal having previously played for four different teams, with a winning career record of 55-40-18, and a save percentage of 90.92%. He finished the season 8-6-4, with an overall save percentage of 91.21%. In 5v5 even-strength situations this season, his save percentage was over 92%. His Goals-Saved-Against-Average (GSAA) metric of 0.63 suggests that he was slightly better than an average NHL goalie in 5v5 situations as well, though he did struggle somewhat on the penalty kill.