Holtby to start for Caps vs. Flyers tonight

The slumping Washington Capitals will switch things up in goal on Friday and start Braden Holtby for the first time in 10 days.

Holtby, last year’s playoff hero, will be between the pipes against Philadelphia, snapping Michal Neuvirth‘s streak of five consecutive starts.

Boasting woeful numbers across the board — 0-2-0, 5.04 GAA, .863 save percentage — Holtby is looking to put his sluggish start to the season behind him.

In this instance, the past is a small sample size (two games, two losses to Winnipeg and Tampa Bay) but large enough for Holtby to realize he needs to play better.

“Obviously I want to forget about them,” he explained. “But there’s a lot of things that I’ve taken out of them that I want to work on and a lot of good things that happened at the same time.

“That’s the way hockey goes.”

It’ll be interesting to see how Caps head coach Adam Oates deals with his goaltending situation after tonight.

The Caps play four games next week — Sunday vs. Pittsburgh, Tuesday vs. Toronto, Thursday at Pittsburgh and Saturday vs. Florida — and it’s possible Oates could go right back to Neuvirth for the majority.

“I obviously understand that we want to get some stability to our game right now and Michal’s giving it to us,” Holtby said prior to Thursday’s 3-2 loss to Toronto. “That’s just the life of being a goaltender.”