Capitals' Braden Holtby: Notches 40th victory despite ugly performance

Holtby turned aside 26 shots in Tuesday's 5-4 overtime victory over Minnesota.

Analysis:

This victory looked like it was going to come much more easily until Minnesota scored twice in the final five minutes of regulation. While this wasn't his finest performance, Holtby has still rebounded from a preceding 1-3-1 slump by winning five consecutive starts to reach 40 wins for the third consecutive campaign. His Vezina Trophy hopes have gotten a boost in this stretch thanks to head-to-head wins over Sergei Bobrovsky and now Devan Dubnyk, but Holtby still lags behind Bobrovsky in wins, GAA and save percentage. One more victory would make Holtby only the second goalie after Martin Brodeur to win more than 40 games in three consecutive NHL campaigns.