Braden Holtby takes blame for loss after costly turnover: Ryan Johansen’s shorthanded goal ‘killed us’

January 30, 2020 12:03 am

After an inspiring outing against the Montreal Canadiens on Monday, Braden Holtby gave up three first period goals and five overall to the Nashville Predators, earning his eighth loss in the last 13 games. But it was his gaffe on an early third-period powerplay that Holtby believes deflated the Capitals and gave Nashville the momentum to complete their comeback and win.

“It’s just a play that can’t happen,” a dejected and soft-spoken Holtby said in the locker room after the game. “It’s what killed us.”

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After the Nashville Predators took an early 3-1 lead, the Capitals battled back and scored three unanswered goals in the second period to go into the second intermission up 4-3. Early in the third period, Tom Wilson drew a high-sticking minor on Viktor Arvidsson. The Capitals looked to pad their lead on the powerplay.

Instead, they’d lose it. After a clear down the ice by Nashville, Holtby gathered in the puck and attempted an aggressive, hail-mary pass out of the corner to catch the Predators sleeping. The pass was easily intercepted by Ryan Johansen, who skated the puck into the zone and roofed a shot past Holtby far side.

Capitals have allowed four shorthanded goals in their past seven games.

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) January 30, 2020

“I just didn’t see him there,” Holtby said. “It’s just bad awareness there. Trying to do too much, I guess.

“It’s just a stupid mental error,” he added. “It is what it is. You make sure it doesn’t happen again and push forward.”

Alex Ovechkin, Richard Panik, Nic Dowd, and Braden Holtby address the media after tonight's #CapsPreds loss pic.twitter.com/k24wG9nWoa

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) January 30, 2020

Todd Reirden was asked about the turnover post-game and did not immediately respond to Tarik El-Bashir’s question. The Capitals head coach paused for six seconds before carefully choosing his words, clearly frustrated by the play and not wanting to be harsh to the greatest goaltender in Capitals history.

Coach Reirden addresses the media following the Caps loss to Nashville pic.twitter.com/MtEPQDwZwH

— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) January 30, 2020

“A goalie playing the puck up on a powerplay is not part of our system, it’s not part of our design of how we break pucks out,” Reirden said. “That’s an unforced error.”

He added, “That’s one of many (unforced errors) we had in the game. I’m sure [Braden] will be the first to tell you he’d like to have that play back. That’s the way it goes. He made some good saves after. Obviously, it’s pretty easy to see that error right there. There was a number of other ones that happened to lead to the goal following. There were some turnovers as well. Our shift length being too long in those situations in addition. I think we generated some shots on the powerplay. That’s a situation we’re creating some shot volume. We have to continue. We have to capitalize at the end of the day.

“Obviously, that shorthanded goal hurt us there. I thought Braden, other than that, he was fine. He wasn’t tested with a ton of shot volume. I thought he was tested with some good chances against. I’m certain he’d be more than willing to say that he’d like to make a different play on that one.”

The Capitals’ star rookie backup, Ilya Samsonov, will start against the Ottawa Senators on Friday, looking for his sixth win in the month of January. Samsonov has won every game he’s played in during the month of January and has won 10-straight decisions overall. NBCSN cameras panned to Samsonov on the bench when Holtby gave up his third goal of the first period.

“Obviously, when you get some breaks to go our way you want to make sure you don’t give it right back to them,” Holtby said. “That’s what I did tonight. I felt the guys played a really strong game tonight. It’s frustrating, but you move forward.”