Meet Me In St. Louis – The Caps and the St. Louis Blues met for the first time this season on Thursday in Washington, and they’ll finish off their two-game season’s set on Saturday night in St. Louis. The Caps took the opener by a 5-2 count at Capital One Arena, and now they’ll seek their third straight victory in the opener of a four-game road trip.
Sweeping a home-and-home set is a difficult chore, as the Caps were reminded last weekend when they played well enough to win both games of a weekend set with the New York Rangers, but ended up splitting a set of one-goal decisions.
“I think it’s a little bit harder,” says Washington winger Max Pacioretty, of facing a team in consecutive games. “It’s kind of like college; it’s hard to sweep a team on the weekend. You know each other’s tendencies, you’re familiar with each other, there’s obviously good and bad blood, so I think it’s a bit harder.”
In beating the Blues on Thursday, the Caps scored a pair of power-play goals and killed off all five St. Louis power plays. They limited the Blues to just a dozen shots on net at even strength, marking just the fourth time in the last nine seasons that the Caps have held an opponent to 20 or fewer shots on net on the same night as that foe had five or more power play opportunities.
It will be extremely difficult to replicate that rare feat again tonight, but the Caps are only concerned about getting two points here in St. Louis.
“We need to know a couple of things,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “We played really well, but you know that today, in St. Louis’ building, you're going to get the best version of the St. Louis Blues. And so that's number one. I felt like we did a pretty good job handling that [last weekend] in New York, but it just becomes a more difficult game to win, knowing that you've caught their attention, knowing that they're going to be uncomfortable with the way the game went in your building. And you're going to get the best version of them in their building on Saturday night.
“And then the things inside of it, of what made us successful two nights ago and trying to replicate that, and we know that they're probably going to give another level. Whether it's them starting to deliver more pucks to the net, get to the interior where they gave us some issues with that; they score a couple goals on low to highs, or some point shots with traffic. So little things inside of that of what we made successful, we’ll make sure that we highlight those, and pay attention to the areas that we can correct.”
Last season, the Caps split a home and home set with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and they were swept by Philadelphia in another. Back in 2021-22, the New York Islanders swept Washington in its only home and home set that season.
To find the last time the Caps swept two consecutive games against the same team, you’ve got to go back to the tail end of the pandemic-abbreviated 2020-21 season, when Washington swept the Rangers in two straight games at Madison Square Garden – both of them high-event games with tempers flaring and penalty boxes overflowing – on May 3-5, 2021.
In the opener of this current set of home-and-home games, former Blues winger T.J. Oshie bit the hand that once fed him, notching the sixth hat trick of his NHL career, supplying the difference in a 5-2 Washington win. Back on May 5, 2021 when the Caps last swept a set of home-and-home contests, Oshie had a hat trick in the second game, a 4-2 Caps’ victory.
When The Deal Goes Down – The Caps were in the sky on their way to St. Louis late Friday afternoon when the team announced it had come to terms with forward Aliaksei Protas on a five-year contract extension, less than five years after calling his name during the third round of the 2019 NHL Draft. Protas, who turned 23 earlier this month, is in the midst of his third NHL season, with 133 games worth of NHL experience.
“It’s a big honor, I’m so proud that this team, this organization, they believe in me,” says Protas. “They give me a chance to chase my dreams, and I reached my dream to play in the NHL, Now, they trust me, they support me – and that’s a really big one for me – so now I have to just keep working even harder to prove that I deserve to wear this jersey every night.”
Drafted as a center, Protas has played all three forward positions in the NHL, he has played on all four lines at some point during his career in the League, and he has been deployed on both special teams. In addition to his versatility and flexibility, he is a highly coachable player who works hard and long on a daily basis to make himself a better player.
“It’s been about two and half pro years now for me in North America,” notes Protas. “It’s been unbelievable for me. I met some really good coaches, some really good players, and I’ve been around unbelievable groups of guys. It’s what helped me to grow up as a player, as a person, and I will work to continue to get better – on and off the ice – and it’s been a really good couple of years in terms of just getting used to North America, first of all, and being around great guys. That’s number one, I think.”
The 6-foot-6, 237-pound native of Vitebsk, Belarus totaled four goals and 15 points in 58 games with Washington last season, and in 42 games of action this season, Protas has erased most of those single season standards. He has amassed three goals and 18 points, ranking sixth on the team in scoring. Protas’ 17 even-strength points are second only to Dylan Strome’s 19 among all Washington skaters.
When he arrived in North America to start his pro career here in the early spring of 2021, Carbery was coaching the AHL Hershey Bears, where Protas first got his feet wet in the North American game, late in that pandemic-shortened campaign.
“First of all, first and foremost, I’m just really proud of him, and happy for him and his family,” says Carbery. “He’s worked very, very hard for a long, long time – way before I had ever met him – to reach the dream of playing in the NHL. And now to earn this contract, where he’s going to be a Washington Capital for the foreseeable future for a long time, and to see him smile, he’s put a ton of work in and he is such a great pro.
“He cares so much, works so hard, takes his craft so seriously, works at it, and is so coachable. So anytime you’re around people like that, you want to see them have success – and not just from the team perspective, but individually – and be rewarded for it. And Protas is a prime example of that, and an example I’ll probably use for the rest of my life of how you develop and be coachable.
“His game has come such a long way from when he first came over to North America. And even in the small sample size, I remember when he first came to play in his first game in Hershey [on March 31, 2021], and to see where his game is now at the National Hockey League level, has just been a phenomenal maturation, learning and taking coaching, and improving in the areas that he’s needed to improve in, and now he is a bona fide NHL player.”
Given his age and his size, there is still plenty of upside to Protas’ game in the years ahead, too.
“Every area of the game, for sure,” says Protas. “I think I can get better in terms of compete level, getting hard and getting stronger. For sure – as with every forward – I want to score goals. You want to try to find the ways to score way more; I’m not really happy with that right now, I think I can get way better.”
Back In The Saddle – Caps defenseman Alex Alexeyev recently endured a stretch of nearly two months without being in the lineup. During that time, he continued to patiently bide his time and wait for his opportunity to get back into the lineup, but he also worked hard on and off the ice so that he’d be ready when the chance did come.
Finally, in the Caps’ Tuesday game against Anaheim earlier in the week, Alexeyev was back in the lineup after two dozen straight healthy scratch designations.
“It felt great,” says Alexeyev. “I think I deserve more opportunity to show myself, and I think I did a pretty good job. So I feel pretty good about my game.”
The Caps haven’t been shy about his deployment in his two games back in the lineup; he skated 15:51 on Tuesday against the Ducks and 16:51 against the Blues two nights later, two of his three highest ice time totals this season. One of the reasons he was able to hit the ground running in his return is his conditioning level, which continues to ascend. The 6-foot-4, 212-pound Alexeyev has worked diligently on his body and his conditioning, and both his legs and his lungs have been fine since he jumped back into the lineup.
“I think it was pretty easy for me, because I do a pretty good job off the ice,” says Alexeyev.
Tonight, Alexeyev is expected to be in the lineup for a third straight game, just the second time this season he has dressed for three consecutive contests. The Caps are 9-2-1 in the dozen games in which he has played.
Special Delivery – Thursday’s game was a special teams bonanza for the Capitals, who were able to score a pair of power-play goals – and another four seconds after the expiration of a power play – while killing off all five St. Louis power plays without incident. It’s the second time they’ve managed that feat this season; the first was in a 5-4 victory over the Ducks in Anaheim on Nov. 30.
“Important for our squad, important for our confidence moving forward,” says Oshie of Thursday’s special teams victory. “I’m not sure the penalty kill needed confidence jumping over the boards, but the power play definitely did, from breakouts, to in zone, to shots on net, to scoring goals. So it was a big one for us.
“It’s always nice when you get [Alex Ovechkin] back, because there’s the four skaters and the goaltender that are worried about him. Usually that opens up plays for me in the middle, and Patch and Stromer – and even Johnny [Carlson] dragging their top forward out – is really what created that second power play goal for us.”
St. Louis spent 9:56 of Thursday’s game on the power play, generating seven shots during that time. Carlson (6:18) and Nick Jensen (5:51) ate up most of those hard minutes on the Washington backline, while Nic Dowd (5:13) and Evgeny Kuznetsov (4:59) were the most frequently deployed penalty killers up front.
In The Nets – Charlie Lindgren gets the net tonight for the Caps in St. Louis; he stopped 18 of 20 shots in Thursday’s game to record his ninth win of the season. In his last nine appearances between the pipes, Lindgren is 4-2-2 with a shutout, a 1.81 GAA and a .932 save pct.
Lifetime against the Blues, he is 1-0-1 with a 2.91 GAA and an .864 save pct. in two appearances, both starts.
For the second time in as many games and for the sixth time in the Blues’ last eight contests, Jordan Binnington will be in goal for St. Louis.
Lifetime against Washington, Binnington is 0-1-1 with a 3.48 GAA and an .881 save pct. in two appearances, both starts.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we expect the Caps and Blues to look when they take the ice in St. Louis on Saturday night:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson
67-Pacioretty, 17-Strome, 77-Oshie
21-Protas, 24-McMichael, 39-Mantha
47-Malenstyn, 26-Dowd, 96-Aube-Kubel
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
27-Alexeyev, 3-Jensen
6-Edmundson, 25-Bear
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
35-Kuemper
Injured
15-Milano (upper body)
19-Backstrom (lower body)
38-Sandin (upper body)
Scratches
29-Lapierre
45-Phillips
57-van Riemsdyk
ST. LOUIS
Forwards
89-Buchnevich, 18-Thomas, 25-Kyrou
20-Saad, 10-Schenn, 63-Neighbours
26-Walker, 12-Hayes, 88-Gaudette
13-Toropchenko, 59-Alexandrov, 70-Sundqvist
Defensemen
4-Leddy, 55-Parayko
47-Krug, 72-Faulk
6-Scandella, 51-Kessel
Goaltenders
50-Binnington
30-Hofer
Injured
42-Kapanen (lower body)
Scratches
48-Perunovich
79-Blais
