Spencer Carbery on how the capital predicts to use the Aliaksei protas recently in series against hurricanes: “ pro will move to our programming ”
Aliakshei’s mind I missed all the matches except one of the victory of the first round of Washington Capitals against the Montreal Canadians. The 24 -year -old striker was kept away from the club’s alignment by a skating cup injury he suffered on April 4 against the Chicago Blackhawks with six games to play in regular season.
In his return to capital programming for match 5 on April 30, Protas was placed on the team’s fourth line with Nic Dowd and Brandon Duhaime. The 30-goals’ scorer played very few minutes with Dowd and Duhaime during the regular season, but the head coach Spencer Carbery Considers that the combination is good and will also help Protas to recover in a series of second round against the Hurricanes of Caroline.
“Yeah, it’s huge to be able to place him in there,” said Carbery on Tuesday. “And he obviously adds a lot to this line also in his skills set and what he does. And they had their most productive game, the Dowd line. They were solid through this series, but a really productive game in game 5 with pro on this line.”
With the three on the ice of five out of five in 4-1 victory, the capitals have seen positive differences in the shooting attempts (+1), chances of scoring (+4) and high danger (+3). They did not allow a single chance from Montreal to high content.
Protas played 16:48 of the time of ice in match 5, ranking fourth among the attackers of the capitals. Although he can start with Dowd and Duhaime on a line, Carbery plans to use protas like a Swiss knife in all situations.
“Pro will move in our range,” said Carbery. “We will try to monitor where he is physically. But he is a great player for us, and I think that using it more and more and really doing it in different places, moving a little in our range in certain situations to get it out.
Protas recognized last week that in spite of his return to daily training and the game in match 5, he still did not feel quite like his old self.
“I hope it won’t take up much time, but I will do my best to help the team right now,” he said. “Work hard every day, and I hope it will go even better, and we will continue to get better in a team during the series and during the playoffs.”
Protas had a 2024-25 escape campaign, ranking third on the capital with 66 points (30g, 36a) in 76 games without spending almost any time on the power game (10:06), and had the eighth strongest points in the NHL (60) before injuring himself.
The Capitals and the Hurricanes will launch their series at Capital One Arena on Tuesday evening. Puck Drop for Match 1 is set at 7:00 p.m.
