At Busy Practice, Capitals Spend Extra Time On Power Play With New Addition Protas On Board

ARLINGTON, V.A. — The Washington Capitals were huddled by the whiteboard for quite a bit at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on Wednesday, pointing this way and that as they pondered a glaring issue: the power play.

Coaches Spencer Carbery and Kirk Muller, along with Dylan Strome, Tom Wilson and more leading the conversation, gathered to discuss the man advantage at length, as the team currently possesses the second-worst power play in the league (15.3 percent, tied with the Philadelphia Flyers).

"I think the entries are probably the biggest hot-topic issue of getting on the same page. Units will potentially change a little bit with some of the personnel with (Jakob Chychrun and Wilson) being a potential tomorrow night," Carbery explained. "Just trying to get a little bit better in that area and get on the same page, whether it's with the group that we saw last night where we struggled to get in the zone and set up, or some different guys on that top unit."

Along with Chychrun and Wilson returning, the Capitals also added Aliaksei Protas to the man advantage, a change they made in Tuesday's comeback win over the Montreal Canadiens, and he added a visible spark.

"He does a lot. He's a big body, can play the net front, causes some issues in there. He's got great hands, so he can be a threat, whether it's passing or attacking the net, a threat from the inside, puck recovery, he's strong on the puck, can cut back and hold onto it," Carbery explained. "those are a lot of tools that fit well into a power play."

That said, there is a reason that Washington hasn't necessarily deployed Protas in that position earlier, and that's because Carbery doesn't want his time on the power play to interfere with the roles he plays at 5-on-5 and the penalty kill, where he's thrived over the course of his still-young career.

"He logs a lot of minutes... we used him on the power play, and it felt like — and he may disagree — it may affect his 5-on-5 and his penalty kill minutes, which we rely on. We need him to be 100 out of 100 in those two departments," Carbery said. "If he does play the power play and it takes away from those two areas, we feel like the juice isn't worth the squeeze, even though he may think it is and wants it to be.

"Everybody wants to play the power play... we've sort of challenged him with (when) he does get those opportunities of just trying to keep his pace and the other areas of his game sharp, no drop off there, and then be able to give us something on the power play."

Washington will look to capitalize on the man advantage on Thursday against the San Jose Sharks, who have the ninth-worst penalty kill in the league (77.6 percent), though the PK has been perfect in three of the last four outings.