There has been some contentious debate on Capitals social media about whether Braden Holtby should be the starting goalie. Holtby, a former Vezina Trophy winner, has been playing his worst hockey in his career, but slumps aren't something new for him as he was not playing well going into the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs and was instrumental to the Capitals winning the Stanley Cup that season. However, with Ilya Samsonov playing as well as he is, let's take a look at this topic.
Braden Holtby is having the worst slump of his career as his save percentage is below .900%, which is not good at all. In January, he is 1-2 in three games. It's even worse when looking at his struggles as they go back to December where his slump had begun. In his nine losses this season (not including overtime losses), he's allowed 52 goals and has a save percentage of .858%. His save percentage has been .810% the last few games, so its really been a down year. Even his season stats of 3.02 goals allowed average and .899% is well below his career stats of 2.51 goals allowed average and .917%.
On the other hand, fans have been clamoring for Ilya Samsonov to get the starting goalie job as he has been playing very well of late. Samsonov has won 13 games this season with a 2.11 goals allowed average and .925% save percentage. Plus he is on a eight game winning streak including a shutout of Carolina on January 13. So, just by looking at these stats, it suggests that Samsonov should start? Right?
To answer that question, there has to be some analytics to dig deep into. Let's take a look at the graph below:
While it does suggest that Holtby is letting in softer goals than normal, that graph does not look good for Samsonov. There's a reason why it doesn't look good for him, he's a rookie and seeing NHL players for the first time. Obviously with more playing time and experience in the league he will get better, but Holby is a nine-year veteran. When Holtby gets hot, he can carry a team, but he didn't win a Vezina Trophy for nothing as he's been one of the best goalies in the league. Samsonov will eventually take over as starter in the future, but not any time soon. One big reason that Holtby could be struggling is that he is taking on more with how his defense plays as they don't tend to tighten up that much as they trust Holtby in the net. With Samsonov, the defense has tightened up because of his inexperience. With that in mind, that puts a lot of mental stress on Holtby. Now, part of the problem could be also the defense has not been playing well putting more stress on Holtby which makes it hard for him if he is the last line of the defense.
Capitals fans may remember, but actually going into the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, head coach Barry Trotz decided to start Philipp Grubauer in the net because he had been playing better than Holtby. After losing the first two games of the series to Columbus, Holtby took the reigns and the rest is history as he helped lead the team to the franchise's first Stanley Cup championship. Now, luckily for Holtby, this is much earlier in the season than what happened in 2017-18 and he could easily fix whatever the problem is. But doesn't this slump now sound similar to what happened in 2018? Yeah.
One idea though that could help is that head coach Todd Reirden should give Samsonov some more playing time to decrease Holtby's workload and allow his star goalie to work on the problem and to be more fresh for the playoffs in April. The Chicago Blackhawks executed a plan in 2013 where they essentially split playing time between Corey Crawford and Ray Emery and that team was historically great. Plus, that 2013 Blackhawks team rode Crawford all the way to Stanley Cup championship. If Reirden maybe used that type of system with his goalies the rest of the way, it might be beneficial to both players. Also, Holtby's contract is coming to a close as he is an impending unrestricted free agent and with Nicklas Backstrom's contract extension, it makes it more difficult to re-sign Holtby with salary cap issues which might seem like getting Samsonov some playing time before the potential (and seems very likely) departure of Holtby is best for Samsonov. It might be nice to win one more Stanley Cup championship with Holtby while they have him.
*Stats are as of January 16 before New Jersey game
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