Washington Capitals: 3 possible destinations for Braden Holtby
By CJ Witt
Honorable Mention – New York Islanders
This is not one of the three teams I’ll say he could or should go to. But there are connections there and if this happened I wouldn’t be shocked, but I’d still be surprised at the same time.
We all know the major connection to Barry Trotz. We all know what happened the last time this head coach and goalie partnered up. You have to think Trotz would love the opportunity to work with Holtby once again.
The other major connection is the Islanders goalie coach, Mitch Korn. Holtby had his best years as a starter under Trotz and Korn. Holtby’s worst goals against average under them (not counting their final season together when they went on to win the Stanley Cup) was 2.22 in 2014-15. His worst save percentage was .922 the next season. He also won a Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie under Korn in 2016.
If you had the opportunity to reunite with the coaches that brought the best out of you wouldn’t you consider that?
There is a few major problems here. The Islanders currently have three very good goalies and one of those goalies looks to be the goalie of the future. Personally, I’m taking Holtby over both Thomas Greiss and Semyon Varlamov. Ilya Sorokin is the guy to think about. He just turned 25-years-old and he put up some very impressive numbers while playing in the KHL and CSKA Moscow.
Sorokin is the reason this is very unlikely. But Is this impossible? I don’t think so.