Last night’s win at UBS Arena was a nice, all-around rebound effort by the team as a whole, and it’s hard to point to just a single turning point that stood out…but it was a game that gave us reassurances that Aliaksei Protas is still, in fact, quite good at hockey.
First, he gave the Caps a two-goal lead late in the first. Jakob Chychrun forced a turnover at the Islanders’ blue line and then finding Protas all alone in the slot – and yeah, he ain’t missing from there:
Protas gets it off and gets it in, no problem. In all the right places and no hesitation. The lead goes up to two in the back half of the first period. #ALLCAPS
— Green Line Brawl (@glb.dogfishcr.us) October 11, 2025 at 7:39 PM
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He then added to his evening with a secondary assist on Ryan Leonard’s first NHL goal-with-a-goalie, putting the Caps up 3-0, before showing off the breakout skills we saw so often last season. Tony DeAngelo made the crucial mistake of fumbling the puck on the blue line with Protas lurking, and a simple poke of the puck out of the zone sent Protas flying down the ice and unleashing a ridiculous shot past Ilya Sorokin:
PROTAS
— Dimitri Filipovic (@dimfilipovic.bsky.social) October 11, 2025 at 8:53 PM
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The Post’s Bailey Johnson summed it up perfectly:
From there, all the Caps had to do was hold on, and hold on they did, weathering a couple of power-play goals from the Islanders and a third-period pushback to take the two points.
Next up, the Caps are back in action tonight about 20 miles west as they take on the Rangers at MSG to wrap up a New York weekend.