Holtby Shines In Game Two

Every once in a while, a player does something that goes beyond description. When it comes to hockey, it could be a goal, a pass, a hit, a block or even a save. In the case of game two of the Stanley Cup Finals, the play was a save and the man was Brayden Holtby.

Washington not only stole the game on the stick of Holtby, but they managed to get this game in the bag without Evgeny Kuznetsov, who's been the teams leading scorer in the post season. So now the question was, who's going to score for Washington? It took a little while, but they got their answer. vegas got the party going on a great pass from Luca Sbisa, who sent in James Neal. Neal had to knock the puck out of the air, got to the circle and roofed a wrist shot over Holtby's shoulder to go up 1-0. Then the Washington offense woke up. Lars Eller got redemption for missing the empty net in game one by tying this game up with about two and a half left in the first. He got a great pass from Michal Kempny and was standing by an open net, which lead to a slam dunk tying goal.

Once the 2nd got started, Washington's offense took control. Ovechkin scored his first goal ever in the finals, and 13th of this year's playoffs, on the man advantage to give the Caps a lead. To add to that lead, Brooks Orpik got in on things, scoring his first of the playoffs, set up by Lars Eller, giving him a hand in every goal in this game for Washington. Play got chippy as the period went along, which lead to TJ Oshie taking a bad cross checking penalty, which bit Washington in the rear end. Vegas got back in the game twenty seconds into the man advantage on Shea Theodore's third of the playoffs.

That was as close as the Golden Knights got. Vegas best chance came with just under two minutes left in regulation, when this happened:


Alex Ovechkin's reaction on the bench told the entire story That save by Holtby will forever rank as one of the greatest saves in an NHL Playoff game. He made 37 stops in the game, lowering his goals against average in the playoffs to 2.19. Aside from the one highlighted, Holtby stood on his head at times in this second game to help pull Washington even.

There was still more to be talked about from this second game in the finals. One of the big things to stand out was the refs. The guys in the strips got trashed by the crowed for bad calls, and the big one that was missed, Reeves cross check on Carlson before he scored his goal. The refs kind of made up for it with the Oshie call. It going to be busy for the guys in stripes when things move back to DC Saturday night for game two.

After everything that went down in game one, the second game had a lot to try and live up to. It did in more ways than one. Brayden Holtby's stop at the end of regulation stood head and shoulders above the rest.