UNIONDALE, N.Y. – After the moment when his comeback start met its cruel end, goaltender Braden Holtby struggled to understand how. “Happened pretty fast,” obviously,” he said, before taking longer to explain than the 15 seconds forward John Tavares needed to score the New York Islanders’ sudden-death goal in Sunday afternoon’s 2-1 loss. He hadn’t yet watched the replay of Tavares’s crashing rebound, but this was nothing special. He had, however, stopped 40 shots, more than he ever had during the regular season, and once more protected the Washington Capitals against disaster, right until the bitter end.
“One of those things, you live and you learn,” Holtby said.