Show with ‘the save’

ARLINGTON, Va. — Alex Ovechkin covered his eyes with his gloved hands in disbelief. Barry Trotz hid his disbelief inside.

Chandler Stephenson had the perfect view and didn’t like the odds. The net was wide open and Braden Holtby reached his stick across and stopped Alex Tuch’s shot in the final minutes to save the game.

“I thought, ‘ Oh, no, no, no,’ ” Stephenson said. “And then his paddle was there and he made the save and I just couldn’t believe it.”

Holtby’s unbelievable move might go down as one of the most important moments in Stanley Cup history. It allowed the Capitals to even the series against the Golden Knights with a 3-2 win in Game 2 Wednesday and served as further evidence of Holtby’s dominant playoff run.

Most of the buzz going into the Cup final surrounded Vegas goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, a deserved Conn Smythe favorite who already has three championship rings. But Holtby stole the show in making 37 saves in Game 2 and returned to his career-long playoff dominance after allowing five goals on 33 shots in a Game 1 that was far from goalie-friendly. It’s the kind of play his Capitals teammates have come to expect this time of year.

“The guy’s just a machine,” defenseman Matt Niskanen said. “Boy, has he been good.”

Holtby is far more worried about how to not need to make that desperate of a stop in Game 3 Saturday (8 p.m., NBCSN) and beyond.

“You hope that next time you get more of your body behind it and give it less chance of going in,” Holtby said Friday. “You try and find little areas where you can limit the chance of the puck going in instead of just hoping it doesn’t.”