“Obviously, [Holtby] today was unbelievable.”
That’s Alex Ovechkin’s assessment of his netminder following Monday night’s shootout win over visiting Winnipeg.
Braden Holtby was unbelievable. Obviously.
It may not actually be obvious if you just saw his stat line – 30 saves on 33 shots through overtime before stopping three of five shootout attempts is a rather pedestrian outing, numbers-wise. But Holtby was indeed stout in victory, surrendering only a couple of somewhat fluky goals and one on a clean breakaway (something he’s had to face far too often of late) and making numerous – and confident – ten-bell saves.
Holtby was similarly solid against the Penguins on Sunday… with similarly unspectacular statistics to show for his effort, aside from the one that really matters in the win column.
Such is life in the Caps’ cage these days, where the combination of, shall we say, uneven team defensive play has resulted in a team that hasn’t held an opponent to fewer than two goals in a game since before the All-Star break a month ago (and has had only two two-goals-against efforts in the last 13 games).
To be sure, some of that has been on Holtby and his back-up (we’re okay calling him that, after a brief flirtation with a “1A/1B” situation, right?) Ilya Samsonov. But Holtby’s recent run of good play on the heels of some real inconsistency has Caps fans wondering if their Cup- and Vezina-winning netminder is “back.”
The answer, as it turns out, is complicated.
Holtby is certainly playing better (or, probably more accurately, getting better results) than he has since early December. Let’s look at a couple of charts (data via Natural Stat Trick):
What that first chart shows is the difference between the number of goals that Holtby has allowed at five-on-five and the number of goals we’d expect him to allow over rolling five-game spans. Put aside the raw differences (xG persistently undercounts actual goals allowed, so negatives aren’t necessarily “bad”) and focus on the trends – things have been better lately.
That second chart shows save percentage by shot characterization: Scoring Chances, High-, Medium- and Low-Danger chances. Holtby has been better at stopping Low- and Medium-Danger shots (the most common shots he faces… though it often doesn’t feel that way) and a bit up-and-down on the tougher chances.
But it feels like Holtby has been better than this lately, doesn’t it? There are probably two reasons for this: 1) these charts show five-on-five shots only, and he’s been a wall on the penalty kill lately, so that’s not reflected here; and 2) that uptick in Low- and Medium-Danger shots is up, meaning there have been fewer gut-punch softies that tend to stand out. To wit, Holtby has given up two Low-Danger goals at five-on-five in his last eight games and one Medium-Danger goal in his last seven; eleven of the fourteen five-on-five goals he’s allowed over his last seven games have been High-Danger. Holtby is stopping the shots he “should” stop, and a lot of the rest can be blamed (to an extent) on the defense.
We’ve written fairly extensively on Holtby’s ups-and-downs this season, and this from back in October has been borne out over the four months since:
It’s a little too soon to say that we’re in one of those “ups” right now, but Holtby’s recent play is encouraging. Besides, the way this team has played defensively, you might have to look pretty close to notice when Holtby is, in fact, playing really well. Obviously.