The Washington Capitals have dropped eight of their last 10 games and are looking to some of their key players to step up and get things back on track, and one of those names is Aliaksei Protas.
Protas, who dominated the league at even strength just a season ago, has 10 points in 18 games this season and has gone without a point in the last six games. He also ranks 16th on the team in expected-goals percentage for at 5-on-5, and offensively, is struggling to find consistency.
All the while, beyond the production and numbers, the coaching staff has noticed that his game isn’t where it was at last year.
“He’s fighting it a bit, not just with the puck and offensively, some of the areas that we look at from his reads, penalty kill, have just been a little bit off,” coach Spencer Carbery said. “It’s not just the goals, it’s his whole game.”
That said, the 24-year-old deserves some grace; players go through ebbs and flows, and right now, he and the Capitals as a whole are struggling when it comes to finishing and getting goals on the board.
However, the team is looking to key players like Protas to raise the bar, epecially as he takes on heavier minutes and tries to fill the void on the top-6 left by Pierre-Luc Dubois, who is out long-term.
“Look players especially young players like Pro are gonna go through stretches like that. That’s part of playing in the best league in the world and playing 82-game schedule,” Carbery said. “So we understand that as coaches just try to help him get out of those funks and can do that a bunch of different ways.”
Washington continues its homestand against the Los Angeles Kings on Monday, a tilt that will be a tall task with L.A. being one of the hotter teams in the West and the Capitals looking to start climbing out from the bottom of the East.
“Hopefully, he can get out of the funk he’s in sooner rather than later because he’s a really important player for us,” Carbery said.
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