{"id":554778,"date":"2026-03-30T19:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T19:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/554778\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T19:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T19:52:08","slug":"aliaksei-protas-is-going-to-miss-a-little-bit-of-time-after-head-on-head-collision-with-nic-dowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/554778\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliaksei Protas is \u2018going to miss a little bit of time\u2019 after head-on-head collision with Nic Dowd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aliaksei Protas<\/a> was not on the ice for Washington Capitals practice on Monday after suffering an upper-body injury in the Washington Capitals\u2019 5-4 shootout victory over the Vegas Golden Knights.<\/p>\n

Protas sustained an upper-body injury late in the first period of Saturday\u2019s game. The Belarusian forward slammed headfirst into former Capitals teammate Nic Dowd along the sideboards<\/a>, leaving Dowd bleeding from above the eye and Protas struggling to get up. Minutes later, Protas was woozily helped off the ice by his teammates.<\/p>\n

Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery told reporters after practice on Monday that Protas would be out of the lineup for a bit, including for Tuesday\u2019s home game against the Philadelphia Flyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going to miss a little bit of time,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cWon\u2019t play tomorrow, and then we\u2019ll reassess later in the week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carbery added that Protas flew back with the team and that the winger should return before the end of the regular season, which will wrap up for the Capitals on April 14 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect him back,\u201d Carbery said.<\/p>\n

Protas is the Capitals\u2019 fifth leading scorer with 47 points (23g, 24a) in 70 games this season, and is tied for third with Jakob Chychrun<\/a> for the team\u2019s lead in goals.<\/p>\n

With Protas out of the lineup, David Kampf<\/a> seems likely to make his Capitals debut, more than three weeks after the Capitals acquired him from the Vancouver Canucks at the March 6 trade deadline. Kampf, who missed time dealing with both visa issues and the birth of his child, joined the Capitals on their three-game road trip last week but did not play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to commit to anything at this point for tomorrow, but good chance that he may get in there,\u201d Carbery said.<\/p>\n

Pierre-Luc Dubois<\/a> also did not skate on Monday due to maintenance, but Carbery expects him to be good to go against Philadelphia on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Flyers will roll into town winners of eight consecutive road games, tying a franchise record. The team sits three points ahead of the Capitals in the standings and are one of a handful of teams the Caps must pass if they hope to make the playoffs this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aliaksei Protas was not on the ice for Washington Capitals practice on Monday after suffering an upper-body injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-554778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}