Holtby needs to face more shots

After his team lost the first two games of a best-of-seven series against the Blue Jackets, Washington Capitals coach Barry Trotz swapped goalies.

Braden Holtby replaced Philipp Grubauer as the starter for Game 3 and started again Thursday night.

“He said he was going to stop the puck, and he’s stopping the puck,” Trotz said of Holtby after the Capitals’ 4-1 win over the Blue Jackets in Game 4. “He’s a man of his word.”

Holtby has stopped nearly every shot he’s faced, making 23 saves Thursday after 33 in a 3-2 double-overtime win Tuesday. The problem for the Jackets, captain Nick Foligno said, is that they haven’t forced him to stop the puck more.

“I don’t think we’ve tested him enough,” Foligno said. “Really, I just don’t feel like we’ve shot enough pucks and made it hard on him. The saves he’s made, he’s gotten lucky on a couple Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby only had to make 23 saves in Washington’s 4-1 win over the Blue Jackets in Game 4 on Thursday.

that just hit him. You start peppering him and over time you’re going to break him down.”

The Jackets’ gamebreaker, Artemi Panarin, had a rough game, finishing with more penalties (two) than shots on goal (one). Afterward, Panarin, via a Russian translator, said the team

suffered from nervousness and “it felt like the puck was jumping all the time.”

He added that the team’s shots on goal (24) were lower than they should be and “we should fight for the puck more.” Also, “there should be one guy standing in front of the goalie.”

Foligno agreed the Jackets need to get more traffic in front of Holtby.

“Sometimes you look for that perfect play, and right now it seems like we’re doing that,” Foligno said. “We drive down, we turn up, we look for the perfect guy that’s wide open. There’s no such thing in playoff hockey. You might have a couple of chances where there’s a breakdown and you can have a 2-on-1 or 3-on-2 and you can make a nice tic-tac-toe. But for the most part, it’s throw it on net, crash the net, and we have guys that can do that.”

Added Foligno: “We haven’t done that enough. You really watch our game and those are few and far between. We have to get back to that, and I guarantee you we’ll start putting goals in. … Once you get that mindset, man, it really starts to wear on their team and now they’re playing defense, and they don’t want to do that.”