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Washington Capitals are the NHL’s best at drafting and developing goalies

By Richard Ball

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 16: Ilya Samsonov #30 of the Washington Capitals celebrates with Braden Holtby #70 after the game against the Toronto Maple Leafs during the third period at Capital One Arena on October 16, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 16: Ilya Samsonov #30 of the Washington Capitals celebrates with Braden Holtby #70 after the game against the Toronto Maple Leafs during the third period at Capital One Arena on October 16, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images) /
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The Washington Capitals have done the best job of drafting and developing goalies in the past 15 years. What is the secret of their success?

Goaltender Braden Holtby led the Washington Capitals to the Stanley Cup in the 2017-18 season. He was drafted in the fourth round of the 2008 draft by the Caps.

Holtby’s understudy this season, Ilya Samsonov, was drafted in the first round of the 2015 draft. It is not unusual for the Caps to have home-grown talent between the pipes.

In fact, only five goalies have played for the Caps in the past ten seasons that were not drafted by the team. In the past decade, each NHL team with the exception of Vegas, has played 782 regular season games. The Caps have had five different drafted goaltenders start 651 or 83 percent of those games.

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Caps fans will remember Philipp Grubauer, Semyon Varlamov, and Michal Neuvirth as drafted goalies who started for the team. With so many NHL calibre goalies drafted by the club, they were able to trade these three away.

On 1 July 2011, Varlamov was traded to the Colorado Avalanche for first and second round draft picks. On 5 March 2014, Neuvirth was traded by the Capitals, along with Rostislav Klesla, to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Jaroslav Halak and a third round pick. On 22 June 2018, Grubauer, along with Brooks Orpik, was traded to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for a second round pick.

In the past fifteen years, the five drafted Capitals goalies have started 1,293 games which is the most games started by one teams drafted goaltenders. The Los Angeles Kings are second with 1,044 games with two goalies, Jonathan Quick and Jonathan Bernier, playing 90 percent of them.

Since 2004, only 24 goalies have started more than 200 games and the Caps have drafted three of them: Holtby, Varlamov, and Neuvirth. Grubauer will likely pass the mark this season as the number one goalie for the Avalanche.

So how has Washington been able to find so many starting NHL goalies? Credit needs to go to former General Manager George McPhee and his scouting staff lead by Director of Amateur Scouting and current Assistant General Manager Ross Mahoney. They were the ones who drafted four of the five goalies.

Dave Prior and Mitch Korn were the goaltending coaches for the Caps from 1998 through 2017.  Prior was credited with helping Olaf Kolzig reach his potential and win a Vezina Trophy. Korn helped Dominik Hasek go from journeyman to six time Vezina Trophy winner as well as helping Holtby win the Vezina in 2015-16.

They leave a coaching legacy that current Caps goalie coach Scott Murray has embraced. Murray has worked with Grubauer, Samsonov, Vitek Vanecek and Pheonix Copley in Hershey.

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Current Caps General Manager Brian MacLellan and his staff are off to a good start with the Samsonov pick. Time will tell if he and his staff can keep the Caps as the best development ground for NHL goalies.

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