ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Before the Stanley Cup playoffs began, one Washington Capitals player after another lined up to testify to the importance of goalie Braden Holtby to this team’s success.
“He’s everything for us,” defenseman Karl Alzner told reporters. “He’s won us games, kept us in games and changed the momentum of games.”
“He has bailed us out when we’ve needed it,” forward Marcus Johansson said. “He’s done all you could ask for a goalie.”
His coach, Barry Trotz, played him in 73 regular season games this year — the most in the league. “He’s been our workhorse,” Trotz said, defending his nearly exclusive reliance on the 25-year-old goaltender.
And then, when they needed him the most — with their backs against the wall after a lackluster performance in a 3-1 loss to the New York Islanders on home ice in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Eastern Conference quarterfinals — Holtby was gone, sidelined at game time by sickness.
So what did his teammates do? Everything they could in his absence. They kept the Capitals in the game, changed the momentum of the game and bailed this team, and Hershey call-up goalie Philipp Grubauer, out when they needed it Friday night in a come-from-behind, 4-3 win over the Islanders to tie the series at 1-1.
The goaltender the Capitals had come to rely on this year was replaced by a relative stranger — Grubauer, the 23-year-old German goalie, who had two brief stints the last two years but spent almost this entire season in Hershey, fully expecting to battle for the Calder Cup.
But then Holtby took ill, and Trotz, rather than go to little-used backup Justin Peters, called on Grubauer, who had been playing regularly, to keep Washington from falling down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series.
Whatever made Holtby sick seemed to spread through the Verizon Center when the Islanders’ Cal Clutterbuck put New York on top early with a first-period goal. Ryan Strome scored to give the Islanders a 2-0 lead in the second period, and it seemed like no one was going to bail the Capitals out of this one.
But everything changed when Alzner snuck one in later in the second period to cut New York’s led to 2-1, and Verizon Center erupted.
“We fed off the crowd,” Trotz said.
Even though the Islanders would take another two-goal lead on a score by Kyle Okposo, this had turned into a different Capitals team — one with fight, one that, after being picked up by Holtby so many times this season, now seemed determined to pick up Grubauer.
“We needed to get traffic in front, because he is a good goalie,” said Nicklas Backstrom, who scored the tying goal. “Tough start, down 2-0, but we stuck with it and kept working, and in the second period we got more energy from the goal from Karl. … A lot of guys on this team have good character and never give up. This is how you battle back. We needed this.”
Grubauer seemed to gain confidence from his teammates and then shut New York down, while Alex Ovechkin cut the lead to 3-2 late in the second period, following by the game-tying goal by Backstrom and the game-winner from Jason Chimera with just over 12 minutes left in the game. It was the first lead Washington had in the series.
“I put a lot of pressure on me,” Grubauer said. “I wanted to win this game. The team needs it. Even if we would have lost that game, it would have been 2-0 for those guys, and it’s tough to come back.”
Trotz said Grubauer handled the pressure well.
“I liked his demeanor going in,” he said. “That is the great trait of a goalie — you are not so overwhelmed by the moment or the situation.”
Grubauer’s teammates wouldn’t let him be.
• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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