Best Of You – This will come as no surprise, but when the NHL released the three finalists for a handful of its postseason awards on Friday afternoon, Caps coach Spencer Carbery was named – along with Winnipeg’s Scott Arniel and Montreal’s Martin St. Louis – as a finalist for the Jack Adams Award, presented after every season to the coach “adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success.”
The finalists were released after Carbery addressed the media on Friday, but less than 48 hours earlier – in the wake of his first Stanley Cup playoff series win as a head coach, Carbery was asked to reflect on what the achievement means for himself personally.
“I’m just very grateful,” Carbery began, “to be a head coach in this League and to coach this franchise. I said it yesterday, I pinch myself every day; I get to show up to work and coach our group of players for this organization, for great management and great ownership in a city that I love, and to win and try to do everything that I can every day to try to help the team win, and to win a first-round series, I just couldn’t be prouder.
“I’m such a small part of what our guys did over the last couple of weeks, so it’s pretty humbling and pretty gratifying to be able to win. It’s so hard to win in this League. Sixteen teams, it is so hard to win a playoff series. I’m just so proud of our group.”
When Will I Begin? – After ousting the Montreal Canadiens from the Stanley Cup playoffs with Wednesday night’s 4-1 victory over the Habs, the Caps now turn their attentions to their second-round opponent, the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Caps know who they’re playing, and they know where they’re playing; Washington has secured home ice advantage throughout at least the first three rounds of the playoffs, so the first two games of the series with the Canes will take place at Capital One Arena.
The one element currently still absent from the Caps’ itinerary for the next couple weeks is “when.” Once the Western Conference series are settled – Winnipeg visits St. Louis for Game 6 of that series tonight – and television moguls have made their desires known, the schedule for the upcoming Washington-Carolina series will be set and released to the public.
In the meantime, the Caps are going about their business as if Game 1 will be played on Sunday, because they know that’s the earliest it would be played.
“It’s an interesting wrinkle, because we’re trying to game plan here for how many days of preparation,” says Carbery. “The way that I and our staff approached it today is that we’re assuming that we’re playing Sunday. And if we have to adjust off of that, we’ll do that. But for us to plan for Monday or Tuesday, and now we’re a day short, puts ourselves in a vulnerable spot from a preparation standpoint.
“So we prepare today, [we have] two days, we play Sunday, Sunday night Game 1. If that changes, then we an adjust from there. But that was our approach this morning on how we’ll handle today and [Saturday]. And we’ll find out I’m assuming [Friday] night postgame or maybe in the afternoon. I’m not sure of the actual timing of when they’ll release our schedule, but that’s how we approached it.”
Back In The Saddle Again – Wednesday’s highlight was obviously the Caps winning a playoff series for the first time since 2018 and winning one in front of the home crowd for the first time in just over a decade, since forcing the New York Islanders to exit the postseason with a 2-1 Game 7 victory here on April 27, 2015.
But it was also quite heartening to see Aliaksei Protas back on the ice for the first time since suffering a lower body in an April 4 game against Chicago.
With 66 points (30 goals, 36 assists) this season, Protas tied for third on the team in scoring despite missing its final six games of the campaign. The Caps missed their leading 5-on-5 scorer from the regular season, and they also missed his penalty killing prowess, as the Habs dented the Caps for five power-play goals in as many games in the series.
In his return to action, Protas logged 16:48 in ice time (including 1:23 in shorthanded ice time), a shade over his nightly average of 16:27 during the regular season. He was credited with one hit and one blocked shot, and his only shot attempt missed the mark.
“Overall performance wise, I thought he was good,” says Carbery. “His pace looked good, his puck touches – for the most part – were good; I thought he gave us some good shifts on the penalty kill. There was a little bit of rust, but I would say more related to him just missing a bunch of time and getting plugged right into a competitive playoff series. So I was happy with the way that he played.”
Protas skated in Washington’s top six forward group for most of the season, but with those two lines set and with both units doing excellent work throughout the first four games of the playoffs, it made more sense to install him on the right side of Nic Dowd’s line for his return on Wednesday.
“The reason we put him there – well, a couple of reasons – is [Anthony Beauvillier] has had a lot of success playing with [Dylan Strome and Alex Ovechkin], so we feel really comfortable with that line right now,” says Carbery. “So putting him with Dowd, Dowd is a really easy centerman to play with and to come back into the lineup with. And Pro is so versatile – from being able to play top six, bottom six, penalty kill – so when he looks at the lineup and sees where he is, he knows, ‘Okay, here’s what I’ve got to do tonight at a high level playing with Nic Dowd.’
“And I thought their chemistry [led to] some good [offensive] zone shifts and a couple of good scoring chances that they created I think it was the most productive Dowd’s line has been in the series, analytics wise. Good start for Pro to get him back in, and hopefully he only gets better from there and continues to feel more and more comfortable.”
Game-planning for the Carolina series continues, and the Caps’ forward lines – and in particular, the deployment of its forward lines – may be used in a different way against a very deep, more experienced and much different Carolina lineup whenever that series does get underway.
“Him getting that game under his belt, coming back into a series-clinching game, us having success and winning the game,” says Carbery, “I think that’ll give him some confidence and as we move along here into the Carolina series, I think his game and his role will become more impactful and more significant as we move along.”
Although he had been champing at the bit to rejoin the lineup for days before his actual return, Protas understands the need to make sure he is ready to roll and hopefully beyond any setbacks he might encounter.
“I don’t think you have to be a hero in this scenario when it’s the playoffs; every game is important and you’ve got to take care of team first in here,” he says. “We’ve got to win games, and we’ve got to think about it team-wise; we’ve got to take care of everyone. For sure I wanted a couple more days to get ready and be back.”
