Comments / New

Mid-Day Memories: A Dominating Duo

When one thinks about goaltenders in the National Hockey League, one thinks of tandems – a lead and a backup. Roles clearly defined, each team assigning them in similar fashion. But there is another way of looking at goaltending tandems. To what extent has a pair of goalies dominated their team’s landscape over the long arc of seasons?

On October 11, 1989, a 19-year-old goalie made his NHL debut for the Washington Capitals. It was not the sort of debut he might have dreamt about. Olaf Kolzig, taken with the 19th overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft the previous summer, stopped 19 of 23 shots in taking a 4-1 loss against the Hartford Whalers. He would get a lot better. Starting with that game, the Caps have played 2,375 regular season games. It is a span of the team’s history in which goaltending has been dominated by Kolzig and Braden Holtby. How much have they dominated Capitals goaltending?

Kolzig and Holtby are rather uncommon among goalie tandems across the years. Since Kolzig’s debut in October 1989, only two pairs of goalies have appeared in more regular season games for their respective teams. Here is the complete list of top goalie pairs and games played, by franchise, over the period:

The same goes for regular season wins. Kolzig and Holtby, with 583 wins between them, rank third among team tandems over the period:

The Kolzig-Holtby duo does not dominate to the same degree among the league’s top duos over this period in postseason games, a reflection of the Capitals’ frustration at advancing past the second round over the years until they won the Stanley Cup in 2018. Still, they do rank in the top-third in the league in both playoff games played by a goalie pair and in playoff wins:

While both Kolzig and Holtby have suffered taking the decisions in the Caps’ persistent failure to reach the third round, 2018 notwithstanding, they have combined to display top-notch performances in their production numbers. Among the 70 goalies to appear in at least 25 postseason games since 1990, both Kolzig and Holtby rank in the top ten in goals against average (Holtby seventh at 2.09; Kolzig ninth at 2.14), and they hold two of the top six save percentages over that span of postseason appearances (Holtby fifth at .928; Kolzig sixth at .927).

Few teams have had a pair of goaltenders dominate with their presence and performance over the past 30 years as much as the Capitals. Almost none, in fact. As the team enters what could be a new phase in its goaltending history, “The Age of Ilya Samsonov,” fans might stop to appreciate that which they have been witness to at the position over the last three decades.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Talking Points

%d bloggers like this: