The Montreal Canadiens faced off against the Washington Capitals on a night in late January.

At one point as the game headed to extra time, the Canadiens about to squeak out a 1-0 victory in overtime, the two goaltenders, Carey Price of the Canadiens and Braden Holtby of the Capitals, passed each other, tapping one another's pads.

Maybe only those looking for hidden meaning, signs, portents, would have taken note of a commonplace acknowledgement within the goaltending fraternity.

But in some ways this season has been all about portents and signs of what might come, signals of change at least as it relates to the Capitals and their young starting netminder.

And if you scratch beneath the surface, there are some interesting parallels between Holtby and Price, who is having a career season and is the odds-on favorite to win the Vezina Trophy as the league's top netminder and to become the first goaltender to win the Hart Trophy as league MVP since former Hab -- and later Cap -- netminder Jose Theodore did so in 2002.

Given Price's ascension to greatness -- he was brilliant in leading Canada to a gold medal at the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and then guided the Canadiens to an unexpected berth in the Eastern Conference finals last spring before being injured in Game 1 against the New York Rangers -- it's easy to forget that Price did not simply arrive at the top of the goaltending heap but had to scratch and claw his way there.

The fact Price, the fifth overall pick in the 2005 entry draft, struggled early in his career when given an opportunity to be a starter and that his first playoff experiences were marked by uneven results has faded into the background. In fact, it was not until his fourth playoff season that Price turned in a save percentage better than .901.

Now, is there a goaltender you would rather have between the pipes in a Game 7 situation than Price? Not likely.

Whether Holtby is on such an arc, whether he can deliver the Capitals to something that has eluded this franchise for years -- a significant playoff run, a berth in the finals, a Stanley Cup -- is unknown.

But certainly after a tumultuous 2013-14 season that left some questioning whether Holtby could ever be that kind of goaltender, whether he was the right man for this team, the building blocks are in place for such things to happen.

Carey Price and Braden Holtby appear to be goalies of similar approaches. Francois Lacasse/NHLI via Getty Images

With less than a month left in the regular season, Holtby has played more minutes than any other netminder in the league. He is fifth in wins, tied for second with seven shutouts and fifth among No. 1s with a 2.15 goals-against average and tied for fifth with a .925 save percentage.

If we assume Price is the runaway leader for the Vezina, then Holtby will or should challenge for a spot on the ballot, competing with Pekka Rinne and Marc-Andre Fleury and possibly Devan Dubnyk.

Holtby admitted he wasn't sure what to expect after last season's disappointing turn and the offseason of great change in Washington that saw new head coach Barry Trotz bring in his longtime friend and goaltending guru Mitch Korn.

"I was just looking forward to a new start in sense of team-wise," Holtby told ESPN.com in a recent interview. "Yeah, I just wanted to really get back to my game. And with the help of a lot of guys involved, especially Mitch, I was able to just focus on that, and the year has just kind of flown by.

"Obviously, last year was frustrating for everyone in the organization. And from those frustrations and struggles, you learn a lot. A lot that you can put forward into your career. You do take it one day at a time obviously when it comes to games. Where the work goes is in practice, is thinking about what you can do better."

It's not that last season saw a marked regression for Holtby, the 93rd pick in the 2008 draft, but rather his play suffered as a result of defensive deficiencies around him. And there were efforts from the coaching staff to alter Holtby's style, alterations that didn't provide the desired results.

At last year's trade deadline the Capitals, in the hunt for a playoff spot, acquired veteran netminder Jaroslav Halak from the Buffalo Sabres, adding an element of uncertainty surrounding the team's long-term goaltending plan.

Although Holtby played well down the stretch, going 8-2-2 in his last 12 decisions, the Capitals missed the playoffs and the summer brought a tidal wave of change to the underachieving team.

Among the changes was the arrival of Korn, who was actually contemplating stepping away from the game. His pal Trotz was on his way out in Nashville and Korn had been at it a long time, the entire time, really, in Nashville and before that in Buffalo, where he worked with Hall of Famer Dominik Hasek.

But Trotz asked Korn to join him in Washington and he thought, what the heck?

Some have referred to him as the Goalie Whisperer. And few can break down the position like Korn.

"This job is not a job, it's a marriage," he explained in a recent interview.

You can watch all the video you want of any goalie, any athlete for that matter, "but you don't know it until you own it," he explained.

And that means you don't know what you have and what it might become until you are there living it, working with the player every day.

Korn said he's been lucky with Holtby.

"He's been great," he said. "The skids were already greased."

That means Holtby had worked with good people, such as longtime netminder Olaf Kolzig and former Caps goaltending coach Dave Prior, and before that John Stevenson, a sports psychologist/goalie coach who had worked with Holtby in Saskatoon, where Holtby played junior hockey.

Mitch Korn has changed Holtby's results by not changing his style. Patrick McDermott/Getty Images

Korn discovered that Holtby was logical and cerebral, that there was purpose behind everything he did and that he was really quite laid-back. As far as techniques, Korn helped Holtby become more confident with his own body and his body's movements.

"He really got in touch with his arms and his legs and his chest and his limbs," he said. "He controls them now instead of them controlling him."

As far as Korn is concerned, Holtby has earned all of the things that have happened to him this season -- the starts, the stats, the accolades -- and he has accepted all of it with a quietness that gives his teammates enormous confidence in him to get the job done.

"He's mature beyond his years. He doesn't have an egotistical bone in his body," Korn said. "I have to understand him as well as he understands himself. And he understands himself way better than many."

Needless to say, Holtby has embraced this new relationship, warmed to it and thrived within it.

"I consider myself lucky to have been able to experience a few different coaches, goalie coaches," Holtby explained. "Every one of them I owe a great deal to because they're all brilliant goalie minds and people, and you don't forget about those people. But in the present, Mitch has kind of been the one that brings them all together. He accepts ... what I've learned from them and he doesn't try and change it, he tries to see what we can do to make me better and move forwards, which is admirable from a coach's standpoint. It's all about improving your base layer. It's not changing your base layer.

"It's exactly what I want in a coach and there's very good communication lines between Barry and Mitch, which is like any team, you need to have those communications from top to bottom in order to be successful. That's one thing they're extremely good at."

Former NHL netminder Glenn Healy, now a longtime national broadcast analyst, isn't surprised to see Holtby having the kind of season he's having given his background, upbringing and raw talent.

"His parents, they built a really good foundation for the kid. That's clear. They're really good people and he's a really good person," Healy said. "He's got a tremendous amount of skill. That doesn't evaporate."

If your confidence wanes, as was the case a year ago when the team relied too heavily on Holtby in the absence of structure, it might be harder to see but that talent doesn't go away, Healy explained. With more structure in the Capitals' game, that talent has been on display much more frequently.

"Then you put Mitch Korn in the equation," Healy said. "He's likable, approachable, he's worked with lots of goalies with different styles. He didn't come in and try and change Grant Fuhr, he didn't try and change Dominik Hasek, he didn't try and change Pekka Rinne, he worked with them.

"And I think that's the kind of goalie coach every goalie loves."

Former netminder Brent Johnson, who now provides broadcast analysis for the Capitals, recalled his father calling him when Holtby first arrived in Washington.

"I remember my dad saying to me I should watch out for this Braden Holtby because he's going to be a good goalie," Johnson told ESPN.com.

Initially Johnson said he felt there was an "erratic" quality to Holtby's game. "It kind of reminded me of myself when I started," he said.

That has been replaced by a significant measure of control.

"He didn't need to be tightened up. He needed to maybe be reeled in just a tiny bit," Johnson said. "He's now reading and reacting," as opposed to overthinking how to approach shots.

"He's having a remarkable season because of it."

The other element of Holtby's game that has evolved as far as Johnson is concerned is his puck-handling ability.

"I think he's extraordinary when he handles the puck," Johnson said. "He's so comfortable, he's so calm back there. He makes perfect plays."

A number of factors have gone into what has become a breakthrough season for the thoughtful young man from rural Saskatchewan with the bushy beard.

There is Korn's influence, of course.

Braden Holtby's calm demeanor is bringing his team quiet confidence. Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

And there were significant changes made in team personnel, including the addition of two top-four defensemen, Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen, that behind Trotz's game plan have made the Capitals a much more difficult team to play against.

And there was the mandate from management that this was to be Holtby's team.

New GM Brian MacLellan, who had been with the club for the previous 13 seasons -- seven as assistant general manager and thus closely watching Holtby's evolution -- made it clear from the get-go this would be Holtby's job to lose.

"I'm impressed with him," MacLellan told ESPN.com. "He's handled the whole situation, last year and the transition, very well. He chose not to be critical with how things were handled with him.

"We talked about it coming in. We were going to emphasize that he was the guy.

"He's a good teammate. He says the right things all the time. Everything he talks about is team oriented."

There are other factors, too, not the least of which is the simple passage of time.

Holtby played in his first NHL game on Nov. 5, 2010, a relief effort that lasted 10:09. He had just turned 20.

Today he's a father and even though he's just 25, young by any standards, he has also become comfortable with the notion of compartmentalizing things, to moving on and not dwelling on the past.

"You try and get that way as soon as you can," Holtby explained. "You know in order to be successful you have to be able to block things out. Obviously, having a family makes it a lot easier. You go home and you have responsibilities that don't let you think about or dwell on the game. That definitely helps.

"I think anyone would say that at the same time, it does present challenges. It's harder to be on the road and be away from them. Things like that. It's like everything, there's positives and negatives. With your family, obviously everything is a positive. You want to have them and there's no question about that but it makes it that much harder to be away from that."

And so we are left to contemplate whether all the positives that have been forged this season, the numbers, the confidence, will be followed by something more meaningful in the playoffs.

Time will provide the answers to those questions, but for Holtby his approach won't waver, regardless of the stakes.

"One thing that I've learned: early on, I thought that there was a way of me getting up for a big game and just thinking that I could steal it and things like that," Holtby said. "Where you realize in order to be successful you have to treat a shot in the 22nd game of the season the same as Game 7 of the playoffs. You know that there's one way to be successful with it, which you've worked on and you execute the same way. It's obviously harder with different pressures and different situations; that's the thing where you have to work extremely hard mentally.

"As a goalie, the shots are still the same. ... I think that's one of the things that the great playoff performers not only in goaltending and in other sports as well are able to do, is really dumb things down and realize that no matter the circumstances, they see the opportunity as, you know how to do it -- you've done it a million times before and you do it regardless of the circumstances. And that's one thing I want to do."