Washington Capitals: Top 3 studs against the Kings

The Washington Capitals secured a 2-0 win thanks to two late goals from Garnet Hathaway and a shutout from Ilya Samsonov that he earned. It was a big win over the Los Angeles Kings, who entered last night’s game on an eight game point streak. That streak is over.

It wasn’t easy. It was the Caps fifth game in seven nights. They will play another 10:30 game this Saturday against the San Jose Sharks before finishing out their west coast trip with a Sunday night game against the brand new Seattle Kraken.

Here were the top 3 studs from the game.

#3 Aliaksei Protas

One of the hottest topics of the season has been head coach Peter Laviolette’s inability to play the young players more. That wasn’t the case on Wednesday night. In fact not only did six rookies play but one had a standout game even though he wasn’t on the scoresheet.

Aliaksei Protas played in a career high 15:27 minutes of ice time. That’s unheard of minutes for the rookies so far this season. Laviolette even praised him after the game calling him both “excellent” and a “difference maker”. He had three shots on goal while winning 44 percent of his face offs, using his polarizing six foot six frame.