Player Discussion Braden Holtby Appreciation Thread

[hockeykicker]

If we trade Holtby, even in two years, this guy is going to be pissed.

why? he got them the cup. its ok if that happens

 

[maacoshark]

He had to be at his best for them to win.....and he was.

This was exactly what I said when the Holtby/Grubauer debate started here. I always said are only chance was to go with Holtby and he had to be at the top of his game. Hopefully we are done with the Grubauer should be our starter debate.

 

[ThreeOfAPerfectPair]

Colter Wall
Sturgill Simpson
Tyler Childers

Patrician.

 

[Blitzkrieg365]

Pretty cool article by the man himself.

… And Then We Got Mario Kart Tattoos | By Braden Holtby

 

[Raikkonen]

Nate Schmidt brought peds and nintendo and then took the evidence to Vegas.

What a man!

 

[scallionjj11]

 

[francaisvolantsparis]

The trend based on last two seasons. 'Grade' purpose is only to illustrate player clustering by performance level.

Player	GP last two seasons	Sv%	Grade
Pekka Rinne	115	0.934	Playoff Dominator
Ben Bishop	99	0.93	Playoff Dominator
Andrei Vasilevskiy	118	0.93	Playoff Dominator
John Gibson	118	0.929	Playoff Dominator
Jaroslav Halak	94	0.928	Playoff Series Winner
Darcy Kuemper	84	0.928	Playoff Series Winner
Sergei Bobrovsky	127	0.928	Playoff Series Winner
Robin Lehner	99	0.927	Playoff Series Winner
Frederik Andersen	126	0.927	Playoff Series Winner
Semyon Varlamov	100	0.926	Can Win a Game
Tuukka Rask	100	0.925	Can Win a Game
Connor Hellebuyck	130	0.925	Can Win a Game
Marc-Andre Fleury	107	0.924	Can Win a Game
Devan Dubnyk	127	0.924	Can Win a Game
Petr Mrazek	79	0.924	Can Win a Game
Jimmy Howard	115	0.923	Get Ready to Miss Playoffs
Matt Murray	99	0.923	Get Ready to Miss Playoffs
Henrik Lundqvist	115	0.922	Get Ready to Miss Playoffs
Jacob Markstrom	120	0.922	Get Ready to Miss Playoffs
Carter Hutton	82	0.922	Get Ready to Miss Playoffs
Carey Price	115	0.92	Instant Team Rebuild
Braden Holtby	113	0.92	Instant Team Rebuild
Roberto Luongo	78	0.919	Instant Team Rebuild
Jake Allen	105	0.919	Instant Team Rebuild
Mike Smith	97	0.918	Instant Team Rebuild
Cam Ward	76	0.918	Instant Team Rebuild
Jonathan Quick	110	0.916	Get Me Out of the League
Cam Talbot	102	0.915	Get Me Out of the League
Keith Kinkaid	82	0.91	Get Me Out of the League
Martin Jones	122	0.905	Get Me Out of the League
Craig Anderson	108	0.904	Get Me Out of the League

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Carlzner]

John Gibson... playoff dominator, yet didn't win a single playoff game in those 2 seasons.

Braden Holtby... instant team rebuild, yeah. The organization should have followed that advice two seasons ago, right?

 

[francaisvolantsparis]

John Gibson... playoff dominator, yet didn't win a single playoff game in those 2 seasons.

Braden Holtby... instant team rebuild, yeah. The organization should have followed that advice two seasons ago, right?

Hockey is a team game. If your other players are flying, a .920 Sv% goalie can win the Cup and vice versa.

Right here, right now Holtby is a Jonathan Quick, Martin Jones, Henrik Lundqvist -caliber player. Excellent many years ago, terrible today. You give him a big contract and get fired from your GM position the next year.

If Holtby does not get his head out of his *** this year and does not produce at the .935 Sv% level with our stacked and talented team, he should be very-very far from DC in 2020. We cannot waste Ovechkin last years with Jose_Theodore_2.0 goalie in the cage.

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

You lost me at Pekka Rinne - Playoff Dominator.

 

[twabby]

The curious thing about Holtby is that he was still pretty good at ES last year if you look at goals saved above average. He really was hung out to dry by his team.

But his numbers on the PK were dreadful and it's hard to pinpoint why. In terms of shots against and chances against (as measured by xGF and the like) the Capitals were pretty good at PKing last year:

It's possible that the stats didn't really capture the chances the Capitals gave up on the PK, and it's also possible that Holtby just had a run of bad luck or bad play on the PK that isn't likely to be repeated.

Either way I wouldn't be surprised if the Capitals had a much better PK next year.

 

[txpd]

The curious thing about Holtby is that he was still pretty good at ES last year if you look at goals saved above average. He really was hung out to dry by his team.

But his numbers on the PK were dreadful and it's hard to pinpoint why. In terms of shots against and chances against (as measured by xGF and the like) the Capitals were pretty good at PKing last year:

It's possible that the stats didn't really capture the chances the Capitals gave up on the PK, and it's also possible that Holtby just had a run of bad luck or bad play on the PK that isn't likely to be repeated.

Either way I wouldn't be surprised if the Capitals had a much better PK next year.

MacLellan actively tried to find players specifically to improve the pk. Reirden monkeyed with the pk all season trying to help it. Maybe the problem with Holtby's pk numbers was the pk.

 

[twabby]

MacLellan actively tried to find players specifically to improve the pk. Reirden monkeyed with the pk all season trying to help it. Maybe the problem with Holtby's pk numbers was the pk.

As I said in my post it's possible that the PK was bad systematically in a way that wasn't captured by the numbers. But it's also possible that the PK was systematically fine and was just let down by goaltending or just plain bad luck.

 

[francaisvolantsparis]

The curious thing about Holtby is that he was still pretty good at ES last year if you look at goals saved above average. He really was hung out to dry by his team.

But his numbers on the PK were dreadful and it's hard to pinpoint why. In terms of shots against and chances against (as measured by xGF and the like) the Capitals were pretty good at PKing last year:

It's possible that the stats didn't really capture the chances the Capitals gave up on the PK, and it's also possible that Holtby just had a run of bad luck or bad play on the PK that isn't likely to be repeated.

Either way I wouldn't be surprised if the Capitals had a much better PK next year.

Holtby was less than averege at ES last year. Here is the 2/3 league long list of goalies who did (much) better than him at ES last year:

Ben Bishop
Thomas Greiss
Jaroslav Halak
Jordan Binnington
Robin Lehner
Jack Campbell
Anton Khudobin
Matt Murray
Petr Mrazek
Pekka Rinne
Casey DeSmith
Darcy Kuemper
Philipp Grubauer
Frederik Andersen
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Tuukka Rask
Jimmy Howard
John Gibson

 

[twabby]

Holtby was less than averege at ES last year. Here is the 2/3 league long list of goalies who did (much) better than him at ES last year:

Ben Bishop
Thomas Greiss
Jaroslav Halak
Jordan Binnington
Robin Lehner
Jack Campbell
Anton Khudobin
Matt Murray
Petr Mrazek
Pekka Rinne
Casey DeSmith
Darcy Kuemper
Philipp Grubauer
Frederik Andersen
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Tuukka Rask
Jimmy Howard
John Gibson

I'm talking about using GSAA instead of just using save percentage. GSAA tries to account for shot-quality against, while save percentage is indifferent to shot quality.

Using GSAA at even strength Holtby was in the top ~10 to 12 or so starters in the league last year (a little worse if you do GSAA/60). Not great, but certainly not terrible either.

Now of course Holtby was below replacement level in 2017-18 using GSAA so I'm not suggesting that he should be re-signed if he's looking for a long or very lucrative deal. I think it's fair to speculate that he might be done as a top tier goalie for good unless he puts up a great season this year.

 

[francaisvolantsparis]

I'm talking about using GSAA instead of just using save percentage. GSAA tries to account for shot-quality against, while save percentage is indifferent to shot quality.

Using GSAA at even strength Holtby was in the top ~10 to 12 or so starters in the league last year (a little worse if you do GSAA/60). Not great, but certainly not terrible either.

Now of course Holtby was below replacement level in 2017-18 using GSAA so I'm not suggesting that he should be re-signed if he's looking for a long or very lucrative deal. I think it's fair to speculate that he might be done as a top tier goalie for good unless he puts up a great season this year.

My point, exactly.

 

[txpd]

But it's also possible that the PK was systematically fine and was just let down by goaltending.

Possible, but you would be suggesting the Caps made roster changes at forward and defense because of goaltending.

I recall a conversation with Olie Kolzig when after years of a stable defense he could read plays know who would do what. With new less effective players he couldn't count on any consistency and no idea where the puck was going til it went there. An erratic pk hangs goalies out. Bad goaltending shows the ok doing it's job. You don't fire pk players for that

 

[twabby]

Possible, but you would be suggesting the Caps made roster changes at forward and defense because of goaltending.

I recall a conversation with Olie Kolzig when after years of a stable defense he could read plays know who would do what. With new less effective players he couldn't count on any consistency and no idea where the puck was going til it went there. An erratic pk hangs goalies out. Bad goaltending shows the ok doing it's job. You don't fire pk players for that

I think the Caps front office is much more calculating than the average front office around the league and in general I love what BMac has done with the roster aside from a few early TDL duds (Gleason and Weber). So I'm certainly not ruling out that they identified a real issue with the PK and/or the personnel and tried addressing it with the acquisitions last TDL and this offseason. And given their prolonged level of success the front office has earned some level of trust on these matters.

But it's also true that the new acquisitions last year didn't actually improve the PK: 7.47 GA/60 after the trade deadline vs. 7.08 GA/60 before the trade deadline and the shot rate remained basically unchanged. It's a small sample and there is probably an adjustment period to account for so I'm not willing to draw any real conclusions from it one way or the other, but it sure looked the same.

I think their PK results will be much better this year. I think they are bound for some regression and I think they have good personnel and a good system in place. I'm just not sure they needed new personnel for the PK specifically.

 

[txpd]

So Hagelin was unnecessary and resigning him a mistake?

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

So Hagelin was unnecessary and resigning him a mistake?

We'll see, right? They clearly retooled the third line to be more responsively defensively and are betting that the improvements on defense and specials will more than offset the loss of offense.

 

[twabby]

So Hagelin was unnecessary and resigning him a mistake?

I think he still provides value at even strength, particularly defensively, and his AAV doesn’t break the bank so I’d lean toward the signing being fine especially if you want to consider any off-ice value which I am increasingly . If he was signed purely as a PKer then I’d lean toward it being an overpay and unnecessary.

It’s why I thought letting Beagle walk was the right move. Of course he was fine as a PKer but other than that and faceoffs he just didn’t bring enough to command $3 million a year from Washington when Dowd is just as good at most aspects of the game.

 

[txpd]

Hagelin is obviously an almost all situations player. He is a quality 5 on 5 and a nightmare 4 on 4. But his lead skill is as the lead pk forward on the team. I am pretty confident that if the PK was just fine the Caps could have found a more offensive player for that roster spot instead of a penalty killer.

 

[francaisvolantsparis]

Holtby was average in 5v5 plays. Why you focus on PK only?

 

[Chelis Chili]

HOLTBY CONTINUE TO LEAD THE WAY FOR THE CAPITALS

Holtby improved to 10-0-1 dating to Oct. 10 (at NSH) to extend his personal point streak to 11 games and became the only Capitals goaltender to post three such streaks during his tenure with the franchise.

The 2015-16 Vezina Trophy winner is the fifth active netminder with three personal point streaks of 11 or more games, joining Marc-Andre Fleury (4x w/ PIT, 1x w/ VGK), Pekka Rinne (4x w/ NSH), Sergei Bobrovsky (4x w/ CBJ) and Tuukka Rask (3x w/ BOS).

Additionally, Holtby (11-1-3) has earned 11 wins through his first 15 decisions for the second time in his career (also 2017-18). Only two other Capitals goaltenders have recorded more than 11 wins through their first 15 decisions: Michal Neuvirth (12-3-0 in 2010-11) and Semyon Varlamov (12-1-2 in 2009-10).

 

[kmart]

he redeemed himself... a bad start in the season and now he plays like a solid #1