The Washington Capitals have been without key forwards TJ Oshie and Aliaksei Protas for the past two games due to injury. Both players took the ice for practice on Saturday morning, sparking tempered hope for head coach Spencer Carbery about their availability moving forward.
The Capitals are slated to take on the Winnipeg Jets in a Sunday matinee matchup. Oshie will be honored before the game for playing in his 1,000th career NHL game on the team’s recent road trip out west.
“We’re hopeful but I just won’t know until tomorrow,” Carbery said Saturday. “We’ll see how today went and we’ll assess tomorrow morning.”
Playing without both wingers is tough on its own but their absence has been compounded by Tom Wilson receiving a six-game suspension from the league for high-sticking. Without three integral pieces of their lineup, the Capitals have been forced to adjust on the fly with a next-man-up mentality.
“I just think that’s maybe one of the strengths of our group and our staff,” Carbery said. “You can sit and waste a lot of time on injuries, personnel, things that you don’t have, adversity that’s put in front of you or you can figure out a way to problem solve. Alright, what’s our group of 20? We need 12 forwards, 6 defensemen, and 2 goaltenders, and let’s figure out how we’re going to win a hockey game.
“Then tomorrow comes and we’ll see who’s available and tackle that day. That’s been a lot of the season this year but I think it prepares you and makes you a little bit mentally tougher for when you do go through situations like this where you lose a Tom Wilson or TJ Oshie isn’t able to play.”
While the team’s lineup missing Wilson and Oshie is the headline on any given day, Protas has also been an irreplaceable part of the forward group all season. The big Belorussian has played all three positions and on all four lines at different times this season.
His 27 five-on-five points rank second on the team behind just Dylan Strome (30). Protas also kills penalties and has gotten time on the second power-play unit.
“Really challenging [playing without Protas],” Carbery said. “All the guys you named and Pro specifically they’re Swiss army knives. They play when we need to shut a line down, when we got to win a D-zone draw late in a period. You’re seeing some of these things come up and we get scored on at the end of periods now a couple times and a 4-on-4 goal against. We gotta do a better job in those situations but we’re also missing a lot of guys so some players are being put in those spots that are learning on the fly late in the season which is difficult. There’s no doubt that not having Pro hurts our team.”
In addition to potentially being forced into some changes up front with the possible returns of Oshie and Protas, Carbery is also going back to Charlie Lindgren in net. Lindgren relieved Darcy Kuemper in Friday night’s win over the Carolina Hurricanes and will make his 10th start in March against the Jets.
Lindgren was the goalie of record in the Capitals’ 3-0 loss to the Jets on March 11 in Winnipeg. Carbery is hopeful that his team learned from that poor performance on the road and can reverse their fortunes against one of the best teams in the league at home.
“Hopefully we’re better equipped and better prepared to handle their pressure,” Carbery said. “They put us on our heels. Their defensemen, very, very aggressive and all can skate really, really well. Felt like we were smothered at times and just could not get on their half of the rink and we were constantly stalled through the neutral zone.”
Winnipeg will be playing their second afternoon game in a row after taking on the New York Islanders on Saturday. The Jets will be wrapping up a five-game road trip against the Capitals.
