Washington Capitals: 3 possible destinations for Braden Holtby
3 possible destinations for Washington Capitals netminder Braden Holtby.
For the longest time it has looked like pending free agent Braden Holtby will be looking for a new city and new hockey club to call home. That fear and reality did not get diminished recently either. While introducing Peter Leviolette as the teams new head coach Washington Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan said he expected Holtby to test free agency.
It looks very, very unlikely Holtby will be returning to D.C. It doesn’t make a ton of sense for either side to come to terms. Braden will likely want a payday he deserves, and at the same time be a starter that everyone knows he is. The Capitals are not a team that can afford him and have a young goaltender that looks ready in Ilya Samsonov.
It’s tough, but it looks like a fan favorite will be making his way out. That’s sports.
However, it’s also 2020, not 1990. It’s very easy to follow your favorite players with access to pretty much any team and any game at any time. If you can’t watch full games plenty of sites gives you some pretty good highlights. And of course we have smartphones with apps that lets you follow your favorite players. Once they do something you can get updates that tells you how they did.
Sure it’s not the same as having your favorite player on your team. But if you really do love the guy/player it’s impossible these days to not keep up with them.
With all that being said, lets look at three teams that Capitals fans might want to watch more of in 2020-21.
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.
Calgary Flames
The Flames seem to be one of those teams that are just one piece away from being a true threat. Maybe having an elite goaltender can be that one piece?
The Flames have nearly $17 million in cap space. They don’t really have a great goalie at the same time. They don’t have bad goalies, but an upgrade in this position has to be towards the top of their list.
This season David Rittich had a 2.97 GAA and a .907 save percentage. He played in 48 of the teams games this year. Cam Talbot, also a pending free agent, had a 2.67 GAA and a .919 save percentage. Talbot doesn’t seem to be a star starting goaltender and that would likely mean he is gone this off-season. He did however have better playoff stats than his partner Rittich.
In the playoffs Talbot had a 2.42 GAA and a .924 save percentage. In the one game that Rittich played in he had a 10.85 GAA and a .667 save percentage. He played just 16:34. Talbot got the all the time in the playoffs playing 595:33.
Would you rather pay Talbot, or Holtby? Going forward, who would you be more comfortable with as your starting goalie? If your team has long runs and Stanley Cups in mind I’m thinking most would pick Holtby here.
Calgary also isn’t far from Holtby’s hometown of Llyodminster, AB Canada. If Holtby wanted to play close to home there is only one other option…
Edmonton Oilers
And this is the other and closer option to home. By car, Calgary is about a 5 hour trip home for Holtby. Edmonton would be about a 2 and a half to three hour trip home. If going close to home is something to consider Edmonton is the right choice.
The Oilers are somewhat similar to the Flames. It seems they may be one big piece away from going from fringe team, to scary team. Once again, the goalie position could be that position to turn this into a scary team.
Based on what I’ve seen, their guy Mikko Koskinen is an OK goalie. Definitely not bad, not the greatest either. Just good. This season he had a 2.78 GAA and a .917 save percentage. The save percentage for his GAA is actually pretty good. He had a 8.36 Goals Saved Above Average which is also good.
Their other goalie this season, Mike Smith did not have a great season. He had a 2.95 GAA and just a .902 save percentage. Smith is getting older, he’s likely now a backup, he’ll be moving on.
Neither of these guys had a good playoffs. Koskinen had a 3.16 GAA and a .889 save percentage, Smith had a 11.31 GAA and .783 save percentage in Edmonton’s very disappointing qualifying round defeat to the Chicago Blackhawks, who under a normal playoff system, would not have even qualified for the playoffs.
Edmonton has over $10 million in cap space, Koskinen has a $4.5m cap hit. You’d think Holtby would sign for more than that and that would be an expensive goalie tandem. Koskinen however is 32-years-old, Holtby is 30. They could get younger and better at that position and potentially trade Koskinen to free up some space.
If the Oilers could get a great goaltender like Holtby it could be huge for them. Holtby will have to recapture his Vezina form at the same time, but this could be a very good move for the Oilers and Holtby.
San Jose Sharks
San Jose does not have great defense. To make things worse, they had some bad goaltending last season. From someone who watches a lot of Sharks hockey it seemed every time there was a breakdown defensively it ended up in a goal. If San Jose could upgrade their goaltending it could vault them back up the standings.
Both of their current goalies last season had a GAA over three. That’s not a winning recipe if you ask me. Martin Jones had a 3.03 GAA and a .896 save percentage. Aaron Dell had a 3.01 GAA and a .907 save percentage.
Jones has been the starter for the last few seasons and he got the majority of the starts last season as well playing in 41 games. He had the third worst Goals Saved Above Average among goalies who played 2,000 or more minutes with a -14.88 rating. Odd thing here is Holtby had the worst at -16.81.
Everyone who watches enough of this team knows that goaltending has to get better or just get a better goaltender. The defense is not good, put a good defense in front of Jones and he has shown he’s good enough to take teams deep into the playoffs.
However, if the Sharks were to somehow get Holtby and put a good defense in front of him, the sky in the limit. Holtby with good defenses has won Vezina Tophies and Stanley Cups. Jones has not done that and I would say is unlikely to do that. (At least the Vezina part)
The problem here is the salary cap. Martin Jones has a cap hit of $5.75 million. Signing another goalie to a similar or higher cap hit isn’t ideal. The Sharks have just over $14 million in space to both sign Holtby and fill out the rest of their roster.
General Manager Doug Wilson however is no stranger to pulling off big moves. He’s traded for Joe Thornton, he’s traded for Brent Burns and he’s traded for Erik Karlsson. If Wilson sees an opportunity, he’ll give a good effort to get it done.
More. Washington Capitals should pursue Cam Talbot to fill a huge need. light
It’s not going to be the easiest option, but if San Jose doesn’t get brought up in the Holtby lottery I’m not sure what you’re looking at.