Aliaksei Protas is off to a blistering start for the Washington Capitals, who host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
When the Washington Capitals signed Aliaksei Protas to a contract extension in January, they envisioned something like this. The five-year deal and $3.375 million salary cap hit felt a bit rich, particularly to observers outside Washington, for a 23-year-old forward still establishing himself in the NHL. But the Capitals had a feeling Protas would prove them right.
It didn’t start out that way. Protas had 18 points in 42 games when he signed the extension last season and finished with 29, meaning he tallied just 11 points in the remaining 36 games after Washington locked him up with a long-term deal.
But after what the 6-foot-6, 225-pound winger called a “great” offseason, Protas is off to a blistering start — and proving what the Capitals foresaw when they offered him the contract. Protas has seven points in eight games and has played all but one game on the top line with Dylan Strome and Alex Ovechkin.
His three-point game in Tuesday’s win over the New York Rangers was a standout performance. But by the standard Protas has set for himself, it wasn’t a surprise.
“He’s a really smart player,” Coach Spencer Carbery said after the third game of the season. “He’s a really good hockey player, and the sky’s the limit for him in this league. [He’s] so coachable, works hard, competes. He’s got all these tools. I’m not telling you he’s going to become an NHL all-star and have 100 points, but I have a lot of confidence that he’s going to be a really, really effective player in this league.”
When the Capitals drafted Protas in the third round in 2019, his size and potential were evident, but so was his rawness. He was already 6-5 then, as an 18-year-old, but was listed at just 190 pounds. Protas needed to improve his skating, add muscle and grow into his lanky frame, all of which he has done in recent years.
Protas said Wednesday that the focus of his offseason was building strength in his lower body. He’s noticeably faster this year; the multiple breakaways he has produced have put his speed on display.
“[Lower-body strength] has always been my weakness because of height,” Protas said. “You have to focus on that and work basically every day to get better. It’s a lot harder for the tall guys to get more muscle. It takes more time, so you have to work like twice more than everybody else. … Thanks to the strength coaches here. Thank you to the skating coach Wendy Marco. [She] did a really good job to help me with that. My skating coach back home helped a lot the past couple years. Hard work pays off, you know?”
Protas’s dedication to working on his game gave the Capitals the belief that he would live up to the contract. Having already seen how he has rounded out his game as he became an NHL regular, the expectation was that he would continue to improve. He has.
“When you know Pro and you’re around him, there’s the physical attributes that he has — the size, his skating, his hands. And then you couple that with his brain,” Carbery said Wednesday. “When you talk to him about certain things, he picks it up quickly. ‘Okay, we want you to go here.’ ‘Got it; no problem.’ The next game, you watch his shifts, he’s going to that spot or doing that, what you’re asking of him. … He’s just a tireless worker, so you knew he was going to do everything he possibly could to get better every day.
“Those players like that, all those things I just mentioned, gives you quite a bit of confidence — it’s never a sure bet, but you’re pretty confident that he’s going to reach his max potential.”
Protas credited some of his success to Strome and Ovechkin, but he wouldn’t be playing on the top line with them if he didn’t have the skill and ability to match them night in and night out. He had the secondary assist on Ovechkin’s first goal Tuesday, then had the primary on Ovechkin’s second before scoring a goal of his own at four-on-four later in the game.
Protas nearly scored his second goal of the night on the penalty kill midway through the second period on the kind of sequence that would have lived on highlight reels for decades if he had found the back of the net. His stick broke early in his penalty kill shift, but the Capitals couldn’t get the puck out of the defensive zone, so a stickless Protas was stuck defending for a long stretch.
And when the puck did come out, Protas chased it down, got a stick from the bench on his way by — it turned out to be Strome’s stick — and nearly put the puck in the net. Forward Connor McMichael said “the roof in the building would’ve came off” if Protas had finished the sequence with a goal.
Protas joked that he would’ve retired had he scored, because nothing would top a play like that. But as he grows into his potential in Washington, getting to play with Ovechkin every night comes pretty close.
“You have to be on your best to prove that you can play on that line with Stromer and Ovi,” he said. “It’s lifetime memories every shift. You’ll remember that for the rest of your life. Even those couple assists, you kind of realize you might a little bit help him to get [to Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goals record]. It’s something special you will never forget.”