Goaltender says he’s not fazed by triple-overtime loss to Rangers Now comes a true test for Capitals goalie Braden Holtby.
The 22-year-old rookie has been steady through 10 postseason games. He didn’t succumb to nerves early in the first round against Boston. He gave his team a chance to win on the road in overtime of Game ?7 last week. He shook off a sketchy start to the second round against the New York Rangers and played well during Game 2 in a rollicking Madison Square Garden. But, yes, things do get harder still in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Losing in triple overtime, as Washington did in Game 3 on Wednesday night, is a different animal. There is the shock of sudden defeat and the knowledge that 114 minutes, 41 seconds worth of effort brought the Caps no closer to their goal of winning the series. Holtby stopped 47 of 49 New York shots and again bought the Caps time, but in the end it didn’t matter. They lost on Marian Gaborik’s goal, and the season crept one game closer to its end.
| Up next |
| Rangers at Capitals |
| When » Saturday, 12:30 p.m. |
| Where » Verizon Center |
| TV » NBC |
“It’s a loss,” Holtby said afterward. “It’s no different than any other one. It was a hard-fought battle. We’ll be ready for the next game.”
But the mental hurdle of knowing he will have to skate right back on the ice for Game 4 on Saturday afternoon will pose the biggest challenge for Holtby. No one knows that better than associate goaltender coach Olie Kolzig, a franchise icon who won and lost his share of overtime playoff games during his 16-year career with Washington.
Kolzig was in goal the night Petr Nedved scored for Pittsburgh in the final minute of the fourth overtime in a 1996 first-round game. That still ranks as the fifth-longest game in NHL history. Kolzig was on the losing end, too, when Tampa Bay won in triple overtime at Verizon Center in Game 6 of a 2003 series. That stung even more. It ended the Caps’ season.
“All you can take from that is [Holtby] was there for the guys,” Kolzig said. “The good thing is they got two days between games so that the emotional benefit you get out of it both ways won’t be as significant as if we were playing [Friday] night. Their high will come down a little bit, our low will come up a little bit and both teams will be re-energized and rested.”
Holtby has suffered from cramps and dehydration in the past. That hurt him during his first start after a late-season recall from Hershey of the American Hockey League. An unseasonably warm day in Detroit left him struggling late in a March 19 win at Joe Louis Arena. Holtby now takes supplements and drinks salt water to help minimize that issue.
Still, more than 114 minutes of hockey could leave anyone mentally and physically exhausted. The day-in, day-out consistency needed in the playoffs is what concerned Kolzig and Dave Prior, the team’s director of goaltending, about Holtby. It’s time to see whether he can push those pre-playoff worries aside and give Washington another chance to tie the series.
