The Washington Capitals have a problem as they head to Florida on a two-game road trip.
Nic Dowd, an integral part of the team’s center group, is not joining the rest of the group on the trip due to an upper-body injury he suffered against the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night. The Capitals recalled Pierrick Dube from the AHL to fill Dowd’s roster spot but he is a winger so the team is instead looking internally to replace Dowd in the lineup.
Dowd plays a massive role at both even strength and on the penalty kill for the Capitals, skating the sixth most minutes (15:27) on the team per game. Head coach Spencer Carbery spoke about how the team plans to fill the hole he leaves and a large portion of that is going to come via Aliaksei Protas being moved to center on the fourth line.
“Unfortunate the circumstances, but I think it’s good timing,” Carbery said. “His game is in a pretty good spot. When it comes to playing center we’ve worked a lot with him on awareness, his feet moving whenever he gets the puck, and some net-front stuff. Now, playing center I look at puck battles, your faceoffs, down-low coverage. As a centerman, you get into those situations 10-15 times more in a game than you would as a winger.
“It’s something that I’ve had in the back of my mind throughout the years – getting a good, solid look at Protas in the middle. How does that affect the rest of the group? Number one, him taking ownership of that role and being real solid as that, call it fourth-line center.”
Dowd has been the sacrificial lamb of sorts for the Capitals this season, getting almost exclusively defensive-zone starts when he jumps over the boards. At five-on-five through 45 games, Dowd has received 337 combined defensive-zone and neutral-zone starts compared to just 25 offensive-zone starts.
The team’s fourth line, led by Dowd, also almost always gets the man-to-man marking duties against the opposition’s best players. Recently, Tom Wilson has dropped down to the line, joining Dowd and Beck Malenstyn to provide more support against some of the NHL’s best forwards.
“[Protas] has to be hard, heavy against really strong first lines, second lines,” Carbery said. “Winning those puck battles is so important for a centerman down low in D-zone coverage especially if you’re playing in a bottom-six role where you’re potentially playing against Kucherov, Stamkos. He’s going to have to bear down in those situations and win some of those 50-50s, especially in the defensive zone.”
Protas does have some past experience at center in the NHL although he has rarely stuck at the position for long stretches. His massive frame and long reach does seem suited to the position but he has spent the vast majority of his time in the WHL, AHL, and NHL on the wing since being drafted by the Capitals in 2019.
While Protas is likely to take the brunt of the role Dowd leaves behind, Carbery also mentioned increased responsibility from several other Capitals forwards.
“We’ll look to quite a few guys,” Carbery said. “It’ll be some more responsibility penalty kill wise for Protas, [Connor McMichael], and even probably [TJ Oshie]. We’re going to have to now rely on more of a mixed bag in some deployments. [Dylan Strome] has gotta take a little more responsibility maybe having some D-zone starts and having to play against some top sixes. Mikey, same thing, and even Sgarbossa for that matter. I think it’s a shared responsibility and then probably the top of that list is Pro getting the opportunity to play center.”
With Protas, McMichael, and Sgarbossa now all down the middle, three of the Capitals’ centers will be from the Hershey Bears’ 2023 Calder Cup championship team.
Protas has a career-high 22 points (4g, 18a) through 53 games this season. He is five games away from tying his career-high in games played in one season (58), set last year. With Dowd also coming up in a slew of recent trade rumors, this also might be Protas’ tryout to see if he can stay at center more long term.
