The only skater to get the best of Braden Holtby on Monday night was Justin Williams. And yes, that’s Washington Capitals forward Justin Williams, Holtby’s teammate.
As the Capitals warmed up before their matchup with the Edmonton Oilers, Williams inadvertently ran over Holtby, crushing the netminder beneath him as he fell to the ice.
Luckily for the Caps, Holtby wasn’t injured in the pileup. In fact, he went on to have one of his best games of the season, stopping all 33 shots he faced in a 1-0 Washington win.
This was the best of the bunch.
“(On Monday) he was by far our best player,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz told reporters after the game, via Russian Machine Never Breaks. “There wasn’t even anybody in the same universe as him.”
Holtby has been among the NHL’s top goaltenders this season, posting a 12-4-0 record and ranking in the top 10 in the league in both goals against average (second at 1.88) and save percentage (10th at .926).
Thumbnail photo via Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports Images
