Aliaksei Protas picked the perfect night for his first two-goal game in the NHL. The big forward accounted for all of Washington’s offense in a 2-1 victory over the Blue Jackets in Columbus on Thursday night, a triumph that extends the Caps’ franchise record road winning streak to 10 games.
Thursday’s win also pushes the Caps’ point streak to eight (7-0-1). The Capitals’ win over Columbus is their 20th of the season, and a dozen of them are of the comeback variety. Washington tied its franchise mark, reaching the 20-win mark in the 28th game of the season for the third time (also 1992-92 and 2015-16).
With the Caps down a goal entering the third period of their previous game in Montreal, Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery put Protas on a line with P-L Dubois and Tom Wilson, a move that paid instant dividends when Wilson struck for the tying and game-winning goals in the final frame.
Protas assisted on both of those Wilson goals. On Thursday in Columbus, the Caps trailed 1-0 entering the third, and Protas played the part of Wilson in this one; he scored the tying goal in the opening minute of the third period, and the game-winner – the first overtime game-winner of his NHL career – at 2:23 of the extra session.
With Washington in possession of the puck, the Caps executed a neutral zone regroup in overtime, getting a fresh trio on the ice. Dylan Strome hopped over the boards and gained the zone, then left a drop feed for Protas, whose shot from between the circles beat Jackets’ goalie Jet Greaves on the blocker side.
“Just a good flash screen by Stromer, I think,” replies Protas. “I got some time in there, and I decided I’ve got to shoot it; even if I miss it, I think [Jakob Chychrun] was coming down the ice so he could grab it. And I thought it was a pretty safe play, and it worked out pretty well.”
That it did. The Caps’ penalty killing unit kept the game close, snuffing out four of five Columbus power plays on the night. The Blue Jackets grabbed a 1-0 lead on the power play at 14:12 of the middle period, scoring on the third of their four extra-man opportunities in the second.
Zach Werenski’s wrist shot from between the tops of the circles put the Caps down a puck, but Charlie Lindgren (32 saves) earned his ninth win by shutting the door the rest of the way.
On the first shift of the third period, ex-Jacket Dubois gained the Columbus zone on the left side, carrying down is before firing a pass to the front for Protas, whose one-timer spoiled Greaves’ shutout bid; the Columbus netminder stopped each of the first two dozen shots he faced and helped his team to a point with a 35-save night.
“Just a giant person open in the slot,” smiles Dubois, when asked what he saw on the first Protas goal. “I was telling [Caps winger Andrew Mangiapane] in the second, that I’m used to having a big, towering presence on the ice. Mang is so small that I didn’t see him behind [Jackets defenseman Ivan] Provorov.”
Lindgren’s biggest stop came in the third when he denied the dangerous Kirill Marchenko twice in succession from in tight.
“I got it with my paddle,” says Lindgren. “It was one of those where the [defenseman] throws it to the net, and [Marchenko] is all alone in front. He gets a tip on it, and then it kind of squirts out. I see it right there, and I throw my stick out, and thank goodness, baby. I’ll take it all day. Those saves feel good.”
Coming off a four-day layoff between games, the Caps came out of the gates in strong fashion. They put a lot of rubber on Greaves, who was making his first NHL start of the season after earning Goalie of the Month honors with AHL Cleveland on the strength of his 7-1-0 November.
“I liked our game tonight,” says Carbery. “It was a little bit different; we were doing a lot of good things. It was just a little bit off, whether it was us getting into some scoring situations and we were just shooting it into [Greaves’] glove, or just off with our execution in those scoring situations. And there’s just a few plays, but we were doing the right things to put ourselves in good spots. We just didn’t have a lot of finish and a lot of polish tonight, but we didn’t deviate.
“We just stuck with it, stuck with it in that third period, the first shift – massive shift coming out of the intermission – and us trying to set the tone. Those spots you can sometimes chase a bit, and now you get out of the things that we do offensively, or you can deviate a little bit and get on your own page. But it was able to get us settled down right away in the third period there. I thought we did a pretty good job for the most part in the third period, and we found a way in OT.”
Columbus played a strong game, and the Jackets were able to shake the shackles of a 14-game streak in which they allowed at least one power-play goal in every game, the longest streak of its kind in the NHL in 15 years. The Jackets were disciplined; they took only one penalty all night, and the Caps had only 73 seconds worth of power play time.
The Caps streak of nine straight regulation wins on the road died on Thursday in Columbus, but Protas’ big overtime goal pushed the franchise mark into double-digit territory. They are the 12th team in NHL history to win as many as 10 straight on the road.
“Pro has been having a great season,” says Dubois. “I don’t even know how many points he has now, and he doesn’t even play on the power play. He’s just relentless. He plays well on the penalty kill and is just such a smart player. He is sneaky, one of our most valuable players every night. We can count on him in every situation. He’s been fun to play with.”
