4 – Number of days remaining until the start of the Washington Capitals’ 50th season. But it’s also…
…the number of times a Capitals’ goalie has put up at least 40 wins in a season. Those four 40+ win seasons were all accomplished by two goalies – the legends themselves, Braden Holtby and Olie Kolzig.
Kolzig’s lone venture into 40-win territory was in 1999-00, when he posted 41 and won his first (and the organization’s second) Vezina Trophy. Holtby, meanwhile, hit the 40-win mark three times in his career as a Cap, including a 48-win campaign in 2015-16 that resulted in a Vezina Trophy of his own and tied Martin Brodeur for the most wins in a single season in NHL history.
The Caps’ duo are part of an elite club in the history of the league, with only 37 goalies ever cracking 40 wins, and Holtby belongs to an even more specialized group as one of just seven to repeat the feat at least three times. Holtby joins Pekka Rinne, Evgeni Nabokov, Miikka Kiprusoff, Jacques Plante, and Terry Sawchuk, each of whom had three 40+ win seasons…all trailing Brodeur, who leads the way with eight.