Photo credit: @davidb22307

Holtby leads the Caps on the ice for warmups prior to Game 2. (Photo credit: Chris Gordon)

It’s playoff time, which means we’re in for an inordinate amount of NBC coverage showing Braden Holtby getting all zen-like on the Capitals’ bench. But what, exactly, is going through the young goaltender’s mind in those moments?

“It’s just visualization techniques, breathing techniques,” Holtby, in a crisp suit with a purple pocket square, told me Sunday morning at Kettler Capitals Iceplex before the team’s flight to New York. “It’s just one of the things I do I try to do to get my mind in the same frame every night. It gets a lot of attention but a lot of guys do it, you just don’t see it.”

Holtby’s right about it being more widespread than some think.

“I came to the rink three hours early, I had a coffee, a stretch, and I did about 30 minutes of visualization,” Olie Kolzig told CSN Washington a few days ago. “That was the extent of my preparation.”

So we know Holtby’s visualizing; we’ve heard that a thousand times. But what does that actually mean? Well, Holtby says he almost playing a game in his head, imagining what the other team is doing and how he wants to react.

“You go over everything: certain plays, certain things you’ve been working on that you want to see yourself do correctly,” he said. “It’s just visualizing what you want to do. … Try to view yourself the way you want to be viewed.”

So there you have it: Braden Holtby spends his time before big games daydreaming.

Of course, Holtby’s pre-game contemplation isn’t his only idiosyncrasy. Braden’s Holtbyisms are well documented, but the goalie is rather terse when pressed on why, exactly, he does them. What he will concede, though, is that all his little moves (whether it’s spitting water through his teeth, tapping the posts, or flipping his water bottle into the air) help him stay focused on what’s happening on the ice in front of him and nothing more — especially during tight, stressful playoff games.

“It’s routines — everyone has them,” he said. “Everyone has their little things that they do in order to refocus and whatnot.”

“I try to approach every game the same no matter what the circumstances are,” Holtby added. “The biggest way to do that is just to focus on the task at hand and do my best to block everything out.”

[Ed. note:Today, the latest member of the PuckBuddys team hits the ice. Jason Rogers currently hangs his hat in Virginia, has studied in Paris and worked in China (always one step ahead of Interpol). But where ever he is in the world he’s a Caps fan through and through. He knows the game and we're not holding that against him. Jason currently sports #8 – and the “C” – playing center for the Manassas Sperm Whales. Srsly. Give him a follow on twitter.]

Morning Skate: Well, Saturday’s game against the Devils sure was fun to watch, no? Alex Ovechkin bowled a Magician, and the whole team clearly ate their morning Oates with breakfast. It was a real big-boy win against the defending Eastern Conference champions for this Caps team, and like a really nice yard with an unmarked septic field, hopefully something they can build on. Today, Southeast Division rival Carolina Hurricanes blow into town like a hot, smelly belch from the South. I hope they brought illegal fireworks.

The unbearable lightness of being Sasha

The Puck Drop: There are a couple big plot points to this match-up for the Caps. The first, of course, is the Return of Sasha. Yes, the man who once shared a banner with Voldemort is coming back to Verizon. If I had to guess how Semin feels about this, I would play the averages and assume he doesn’t care.

But I predict the Verizon faithful are going to let him have it, with a few scattered apologists wailing, “Guys, but that wrister!” He’s been an alright pickup for the Hurricanes with three goals on the season. Or, differently, as many as Ovechkin had in his last game. And speaking of Ovechkin, my God, we might get to see Ovi absolutely train track Sasha in the open ice. Think about that, and salivate over it. I need to go change.

The second big plot point is that the Caps have a chance to take two more points off of a division rival’s plate and put it onto theirs. As Jeff Kleiman said on Twitter: “The Southeast Division has really ‘just become a dumpster fire’.” With no teams over .500 and the winner of the division likely to have fewer points than the eventual eighth seed, there’s not a reason in the world the Capitals shouldn’t rise from this trash pile like Rocky over the city of Philadelphia. If they keep playing like Saturday, we could well have a new banner to hang from the rafters at Verizon, even if we have to shake the coffee grounds and band-aid wrappers off it first.

So that’s about where we’re at, which brings me to where we’re going next, and a segment I call:

Liable to Libel: A Baker’s Dozen Lies About Today’s Opponent

• The Hurricanes have petitioned the NHL for permission to change their name twice: once to the Katrinas in 2005, and once to the Sandies in 2012. Let’s see what 2013 brings.
• Eric and Jordan Staal learned to possess the puck so well by being made to fight over scraps of meat tossed to them by their parents, unable to ween all 37 of their hockey-playing children.
• North Carolina ranks first in the US in occurrences of adorable children’s ice cream scoops falling off their cones and making them cry.
• @AlexSemin has blocked @tbrouwer20
• Raleigh, North Carolina was originally called Staalopolis, named for the dinosaur of the same name. It’s true.
  

  The Staal Family

• If you rearrange the letters in Cam Ward’s name, it spells Raw Clams.
• Alex Semin is actually trying really, really hard, guys.
• Passersby often stop the Carolina Hurricanes on the street and say, “Boy, it’s obvious you’ve won a Stanley Cup.”
• Seriously, Alex Semin wants this more than anybody.
• When approached by the league about the possibility of Raleigh hosting an NHL franchise, Mayor Tom Fetzer reportedly began foaming at the mouth and firing a pistol wildly into the air like Yosemite Sam.
• Jussi Jokinen prefers for his first name to be pronounced, “Juicy.”
• The entire cast of Les Mis were all Staals and performed under pseudonyms.
• South Carolina is really grateful the team chose to call themselves “Carolina,” and is totally gonna make it up to North Carolina.

Hot And Hotter: Here’s who and what I’ll be keeping an eye on in tonight’s game at the SIM Card:

1. Ain’t Eight Great? - Much like Hansel, Ovi is burning hot right now. And in DC we’re basking in this fairweather praise like cool whip from Katy Perry’s brassiere. In the home-and-still-home against the Devils, OBestkin played like a Russian with a fire lit under him, with a meteoric ‘See what I did there?’ rise that many would tell you was long in coming. In addition to finishing his checks with gusto and roaring into the zone on breakouts, finally – finally – his buckets and buckets of shots started to hit pay dirt. Whether playing the 1812 Overture from the top of the circle, or creating room for himself with a little dink-and-dunk puck play, the Russian Machine seems to be revving up. Woe unto the rest of the league if he is.
2. The Ebb and Flow of John Carlson - Once hailed by the Screen Actors Guild as the world’s greatest living actor, my jersey-sake #74 has been a sore subject for me this season. J.C. Superstar was once the roll bar on our Miata, keeping us secure when the cycle got rolling on us, pinning us to the boards sharply when we lost our way, and other shallowly extended metaphors. He made smart, lockdown plays in his own end, and was never the weak link going the other way on the rush. Early this season, Spike Strip was blowing tires nightly and leaving Holtby on islands like his name was Tattoo (children, go look it up.) Lockouts are tough on young players to whom acclaim has come quickly. Big things are expected from you, and accomplishment is no longer a pleasant surprise. It’s demanded from you, and Captain America now seems to be lifting himself up off the mat and coming out swinging. He’s keeping pucks in the zone, working the wheelhouse on the power play like Steamboat Willie, and winning footraces to the puck. Also, I bet if you stuck a fork into his hair, it would stand straight up. And that’s gross, but I respect it. [Ed note: Johnny cut his hair!]
3. “Now I ain’t sayin’ he a goaltender, but he ain’t messin’ with…” We’ve been a hot mess between the pipes, like the area rug of a crack house. We have a list of old boyfriends like an experimental trip through Europe: Cristobal, Jose, Semyon, Michal. But Holtby could be our guy; a just-inked, two-year deal underscores that. We all fell in love with Braden during last year’s playoff series against the Bruins when he stared down that little twerp Rich Peverley like a consummate boss and stood on his head so long he got CTE. Yes, Braden Holtby will give up goals if you don’t play defense in front of him. Just like that other guy – what’s his name? - Oh, everyone. But boy, if you give this kid a a demi-snowball’s chance to make a stop, 9.31 times out of 10 he makes the save over the last four games. He’s making quick decisions with the pads and ought to take that glove with him over to Nats spring training. We’ve had our share of streaky goalies, but Holtby could be our Windex man. He’s currently starting in the most consecutive games of his career, and we may be able to keep doing so thanks to the shortened season. I hope that in so doing, he can find his groove and keep doing his weird, Jedi thing.

And with that, I leave you to eagerly await the drop of the puck at 7pm tonight at Verizon. Let’s go get ‘em, boys.

On the day that Semyon Varlamov’s bobblehead was given away to blood donors at Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Braden Holtby would not be outdone on the awesome meter. After Benoit Pouliot dumped the puck in after the referees’ whistled the Habs for being off-side, the sassy 21 year-old ‘keeper kicked the puck into the air, caught it with the blade of his stick before flipping it into his glove. Another great Holtbyism? You bet!

Braden Holtby, in his first career NHL start, makes one of his 23 saves on the night. (Photo credit: Mitchell Layton)

Game Over. (Photo credit: Luis M. Alvarez)

Traditionally, Sunday games have been trouble for the Washington Capitals.  The crowd might be docile, the ice sloppy, the players hungover; doesn’t matter. Quoting Ovechkin: “It was a five o’clock game. Usually you take a nap at this time.”

Tonight’s bout with Eastern Conference-rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers, was remarkable enough to wake the players from their expected slumber. The Flyers, riding a five-game winning streak and leading the league in penalties, brought the smash-mouth brand of  hockey that we expected and did not permit the Caps to play lazy.

Flyer Nikolay Zherdev beat the Caps’ new goalie, Braden Holtby, on a two-on-one to open up the game. Eric Fehr responded with a low-probability/high-awesomesauce snipe from a wide angle. Ville Leino (who it turns out is a person and not a cozy Italian hamlet) got improbably lucky off a deflection to put the Flyers up 2-1. Alex Semin tied the game up on a power-play sweep-in, and there the scored remained until the end of regulation. The specter of a Sean O’Donnell boarding penalty chased the Flyers into OT, which Mike Green turned into an OTGWG. It wasn’t the raucous glove-dropper we were expecting, but a W is a W: Caps beat Flyers 3-2 (OT).

Unordered list of list items!

• 29 seconds into a overtime, “Game Over” Mike Green launched the puck netward. Deflected by Flyers D and screened by Knuble, the puck found its mark. Green is on a 4-game goal streak/5-game point streak. Forget the James Norris Trophy; Green is gunning for the Chuck Norris Trophy (“awarded to the defensive player so rad he cures one disease and invents another to replace it”).
• Braden Holtby took a pensive breath before taking the ice before the game. That was the only sign of hesitation in the goalie. Composed but aggressive: that’s how we’d describe it. 23 saves on 25 shots. Lots of new fans are learning about the Caps’ new star in net and his Holtbyisms, but not you, distinguished RMNB readers. You already knew. For his efforts, Holtby earned the Palm.
• Braden double-bullet! Regarding his rebounds, Holtby said, “I know I can compete at this level now, but there’s a lot of things I need to work on and it was pretty evident tonight.” I’m reminded of a familiar aphorism from Ben Franklin about how all one needs to succeed in life are humility and Holtbyisms. I think beer was in there, too. I’ll dig up the quote and get back to you.
• Speaking of Mike Knuble, the funk continues. It’s like a Bootsie Collins box set up in here.
• Even when you were panicking, I knew we’d win. How did I know? The roster sheet had jersey fifteen on it. The Caps remain undefeated in every game Boyd Gordon in which has suited up.
• Tyler Sloan and John Erskine are the most maligned defensive pairing for the Capitals, and tonight that isn’t fair. Besides the misread play that led to the Flyers’ first goal, Tyler and Big John were on point. Sloan had a was good on both ends, and Erskine had a smart assist on F16′s goal and one NFL-style tackle and smear.
• Brooks Laich missed some ice time after an upper-body injury. Corey Masisak (who has unfollowed us on Twitter despite our typo-laden pleadings not to) reports that Brooks wanted to return, but was rebuffed by team physicians.
• Nick Backstrom took 26 faceoffs tonight. Do you even care how many he won? Fine. It was 16.
• For the millionth time (rough estimate), the Caps sent an opposing player hobbling to the bench after striking him with a puck. Tonight, two-way superstar center Mike Richards was puckified by Alex Ovechkin. Richards joins the ranks of Anton Volchenkov, Zdeno Chara, and Tim Gleason. The aim-for-someone’s-face-and-release tactic should be a core part of the Caps playbook by now.

Joe B's suit-of-the-night: he was eating lemons, btw

This was precisely the kind of match-up the Capitals need to win to match the ridiculous expectations we fans create for them. Luckily, this team is as passionate as we are imperious. We’ve seen Alex Semin and Mike Green extend their streaks (while Mike Knuble extends his), Eric Fehr return to prominence, and the inauguration of a stunning new talent in net. Not bad for a sleepy Sunday night.

See you on Tuesday from the Earthly hell that is Long Island. Yech.

Additional reporting by Ian Oland.

BONUS:

Thanks to @UnleashTheFury, we now have video of Braden’s “Holtby Shuffle” during the National Anthem! Go Braden, GO!!

Last Tuesday, RMNB profiled Braden Holtby and introduced everyone to his oh-so-eccentric “Holtbyisms.” A few thousand hits later, our post now floats in the top ten Google hits for “Braden Holtby.” Alright!

Follow-up time!

I. Spot Starts

During Monday’s media session before the Capitals nationally televised game against the Boston Bruins, Bruce Boudreau dropped a bomb on us.

Per @TarikElBashir: “Coach Bruce Boudreau hinted in his pregame media session that the team has discussed calling up G Braden Holtby to start tomorrow in Pitt.”

Is it a trick?

And then…

Per @cmasisak22: “Calling up Holtby could absolutely be Boudreau playing mind games, but he didn’t back down after being pressured about it.”

It sounds crazy, sure, but might the Capitals reward their fourth-string goalie for his superb season, allowing him to make his NHL debut in a nationally televised game with the team’s most-hated rivals: Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins? Tune in to Versus tomorrow and find out. Oh, Bruce. You so crazy.

II. Kamikaze Pokechecks

What typifies a goalie’s on the top of his game? Storming out of the crease and challenge opposing shooters! Well, Braden Holtby must have been feeling a wee bit cocky on January 23rd against the Manitoba Moose, because in the video below (provided to us by Derek Meluzio), Holtby frantically skates almost all the way out to the blue line to dive head-first and poke check a potential breakaway away from the attacking player. I haven’t seen this kind of blatant disregard for the goalie’s crease since Patrick Roy went for a stroll with the puck past the red line in a game against the Rangers one decade ago.

A replay of Holtby’s Kamikaze Pokecheck comes around the 17 second mark. The speed, the determination, the reckless abandon for his body. I dig it.

III. The Holtby Shuffle

Friend-of-the-Blog Erika Schnure (DChi606 on Twitter) visited the Giant Center Sunday Night and took in Hershey’s final regular-season home game of the season. She shares with us something we’ve missed in our previous stories, one of Braden’s strangest superstitions. Ladies and Gentleman, we proudly present The Holtby Shuffle.

The Holtby Shuffle consists of Braden aggressively skating in place during the entire National Anthem and at times during the second video – hastily throwing his arms and shoulders backwards to loosen up his torso. Do you find yourself rhythmically chanting “GO! GO! GO!” like me?

And to our friends North of the Border, don’t worry. Holtby flips out during “O, Canada,” too.

In conclusion, we here at RMNB hope GMGM and Bruce Boudreau do the right thing and give this tenacious youngster a shot to prove himself in the red, white and blue. Come on coach, just one game? We think it makes sense to rest Semyon Varlamov and Jose Theodore considering it removes any possibility that the Penguins will gain any kind of psychological edge on your dynamic duo heading into the playoffs. And hell, let’s test the mettle of one of our top goaltending prospects and see what he’s got. It couldn’t hurt. Sink or swim, he’ll be alright.

Anyways, if you have any more Holtbyisms to share with us, you know the drill: Put them in the comments below! Looking forward to tomorrow!

It's hard not to love Braden Holtby and his black-rimmed glasses. (Photo Katie Stansbery)

Two Sundays ago, I went to the Hershey Bears/Adirondack Phantoms game where the Bears’ AHL Record Home winning streak ended at 24. There’ll be more on RMNB’s collective bad luck later. But one thing I learned that night is that Braden Holtby is a wildly popular man. Beyond Bruce Boudreau, there is no more popular guy in Hershey. Need examples? Well, while the Bears PA guy announced the starting line-up before the game, there was a smattering of applause for the starting 5. When the PA guy announced Holtby in goal, everyone in the arena rose to their feet and gave him a roaring standing ovation. I turned to my friends in complete shock and asked “Did that really just happen??”

Oh, it most certainly did. And really, there’s a lot to love about the guy (beyond his superb fashion sense and his excellent communication skills with the bewildering Alexander Semin). Holtby has put up incredible numbers in his first professional season in the Capitals’ minor league system. Braden started the year with the South Carolina Stingrays going 7-2-3 with a .911 Save Percentage. He then rode the pine as an injury replacement player in Washington for two games before getting his first shot to stick in Hershey. And stick he did. Since receiving that promotion, Holtby has gone 23-6-2 with 2 Shutouts for the AHL’s most winningest team. His sparkling 2.36 GAA and above average .917 Save Percentage are among AHL Leaders. And really, what has the Chocolate and White fans talking is the fact that Holtby has single-handedly won games this year by himself – even with the incredible roster around him. That has many in Hershey thinking he could eventually push his way into the discussion of who deserves to be the goalie of the future in Washington between Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth.

But if you’re looking for a statistical dissertation of who’s better among those three (SEMYON VARLAMOV), you’ve come to the wrong place my friends. Instead, RMNB has found another reason to fall in love with the twenty year old from Saskatoon: His eccentric “Holtbyisms.”

Don’t know what we’re talking about? We’ll let Bears regular Kathryn Hedrick explain:

As a Holtby admirer since he came to the Hershey Bears, I was already aware of the many rituals and tics he has when he plays. But it wasn’t until I had front row seats right by him on Sunday night that I saw just how much he did. Goalies are a whole different world of hockey players and we all know how superstitious they can be. But I think Holtby goes above and beyond the rest with his rituals. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. There were times when the action was on the other side of the ice but I would still watch him.

These “Holtbyisms,” as they’ve become known, occur from the second he gets on the ice until he gets off (and, let’s be honest, he probably has more that he does in the locker room). During every stoppage in play, he pushes his mask on his head, picks up his water bottle, squirts it at the boards, then squirts it in his mouth. He swishes the water around and then spits it back out through his teeth (Photo Montage Here). I realized how hard it would be to explain some of it to other people so I took two videos of Holtby: one at the start of the period, and one at the end (shown below).

The Bears beat the Binghamton Senators 3-2 that night and Holtby was called on to make several huge saves. He’s easily having the best year of any rookie on the team and he’s putting up some monster stats for someone who was expected to be in South Carolina this season. Maybe these habits aren’t so strange…

Here’s Video of Braden Holtby at the beginning of a period.

Holtby flies into the video around the 10 second mark… and then pure hilarity ensues.

Now Here’s Video of Braden Holtby at the end of a period.

Please notice the thorough sweeping of the crease, the maniacal swipes at the pipes with his stick and then the awesome flip shot of the gatorade bottle into his glove. Somehow, this is even more ridiculous than Karl Alzner’s Superstitions.

Now I know I said the other day that Mike Green was my new favorite player. But after seeing the Holtbyisms described above, I think I’ve got a new number one.

Anyways, I wanted to extend a huge thanks to Kathryn for her writeup, photos and video. Please make sure to follow her on Twitter and thank her for her time. Kathryn, once you’re of age, we’ll buy you a beer (Please God, don’t tell your parents that). And for those of you who have witnessed the Holtbyisms live, tell us more about them in the comments below. Feel free to link to any other photos or videos.