Aliaksei Protas is on a royal heater to start the 2025-26 season.

Protas leads the Capitals in goals after scoring 4 times in the team’s first 5 games of the year. All 4 tallies have come at five-on-five, which puts him in a three-way tie for second place in the entire NHL. His hot start sees him on pace to score 66 goals this season and record 98 points in a full 82-game season.

“Sometimes you get lucky, and I think that’s what’s happening with me right now,” Protas explained after the Capitals’ 5-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Friday. “Sometimes a couple of good bounces and great work from the whole five on the ice, from the whole team just being on the same page.”

Is Protas right? Well, let’s look at his goals.

October 11 vs New York Islanders (2 goals)

Protas’s first goal of the season came after Jakob Chychrun chopped at the puck near the blue line, and it rolled right to him between the circles.

His second of the night came after he sped by everyone on the ice and scored on a breakaway.

October 14 vs Tampa Bay Lightning

Against the Lightning, he shot the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy after Connor McMichael had the goaltender looking the wrong way. “Oh god, my mom would score from that,” Protas said afterward.

October 17 vs Minnesota Wild

Protas scored his fourth goal with a pass. His attempted cross-crease feed to McMichael instead went off a Wild defenseman, through netminder Filip Gustavsson, and into the net.

“Yeah, I tried to pass,” Protas said. “I mean, every goal is like it, this one, too.”

But what if there’s something more going on here than just puck luck?

The 24-year-old Protas is entering his prime as a scoring forward and appears to have returned to the Capitals a step quicker after another hard offseason of training in Belarus with his brother, Ilya.

Protas recorded a career-high 66 points (30g, 36a) in 76 games last season as Spencer Carbery made him a staple in the Capitals’ top six. His previous career high in tallies was 6, meaning he had a 400 percent increase in goals.*

Nothing in Protas’s underlying stats says he is undeserving. With him on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals are seeing positive differentials in shot attempts (+19), scoring chances (+14), and high-danger chances (+8). The Capitals have outscored their opponents 6 to 1 with Protas on the ice at five-on-five, despite him being a part of the Caps’ shutdown line.

Protas’s shooting percentage is currently 25 percent (4 of 16), a tad high. Though if you compare it to his shooting percentage over 76 games during the 2024-25 season, he’s about in line with that mark: 21.1 percent.

All of this is to say, Aliaksei Protas is one of the best players in the NHL currently and is beginning to make the case that he’s an elite finisher. Nothing he does this season should surprise you, even if it may surprise him.

“[He’s] made in a laboratory,” Ryan Leonard said earlier in the month. “It’s crazy. We all say he’s the best player in the league, so it’s special. He’s a special player.”

“I’m telling you, he’s just scratching the surface on his career in this league,” head coach Spencer Carbery said. “He’s such a horse, he’s such a big guy that skates so well, that’s now going to play on the power play this year. He’s got a bright, bright future.”

* If Protas follows his trajectory from last season and sees another 400 percent increase in goals, he would light the lamp 150 times this year. Just sayin.’