{"id":540644,"date":"2026-04-04T17:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T17:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540644\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T17:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T17:43:14","slug":"aliaksei-protas-spoke-to-nic-dowd-about-unfortunate-head-collision-that-led-to-injury-hes-feeling-way-better-now-in-terms-of-how-the-face-looks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540644\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliaksei Protas spoke to Nic Dowd about unfortunate head collision that led to injury: \u2018He\u2019s feeling way better now in terms of how the face looks\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aliaksei Protas<\/a> was involved in an unfortunate collision<\/a> with former Washington Capitals teammate Nic Dowd<\/a> during a recent game against the Vegas Golden Knights.<\/p>\n

The head-on-head contact left Dowd bleeding profusely from a cut just above his eyebrow, but he was ultimately able to return to the game. Protas wasn\u2019t as lucky, missing the rest of the game and the next two Capitals games due to an upper-body injury.<\/p>\n

Protas skated with his teammates for the first time since the collision on Saturday morning<\/a> and informed the media that he had checked in with Dowd after the painful incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI texted him, like, next day,\u201d Protas said. \u201cHe sent me a couple pictures. Didn\u2019t look great from him, so he also got it pretty good. But good for him coming back to that game. I think he\u2019s feeling way better now in terms of how the face looks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protas also went over the play again, expressing some discontent that Golden Knights defenseman Jeremy Lauzon<\/a> likely caused his injury with some unnecessary contact.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we were supposed to be fine,\u201d Protas said. \u201cWe were both kind of slowing down on that play, but the push from the D kind of caught me off guard. I don\u2019t think it was really needed from him, so I didn\u2019t expect that coming from behind. That\u2019s what pushed me kind of forward and caused the big collision. I think we were supposed to be fine, but it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Capitals won the first of the two games Protas missed, but dropped the second, 7-3, to the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night. The inopportune loss, to a team behind them in the Eastern Conference standings, cut their playoff qualification percentage odds<\/a> back into the single digits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, there\u2019s no great time for injuries, for sure,\u201d Protas said. \u201cBut, yeah, especially right now when we fight for our lives. \u201cSure, you want to be there with the boys. You want to help. It is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protas appears ready to jump back into the fray on Saturday night, as Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery listed him as \u201cgood to go\u201d against the Buffalo Sabres. While his bench boss was seemingly sure, Protas himself didn\u2019t entirely commit to being in the team\u2019s lineup just yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeeling great,\u201d Protas said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s been that bad. It\u2019s more just like the fact of the head, but yeah, I needed to stay off a little bit. Feeling good, and we\u2019ll see how the afternoon goes. Feeling great so far, and we\u2019ll see what\u2019s gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protas skated on the Capitals\u2019 top line with Dylan Strome<\/a> and Ivan Miroshnichenko<\/a> at Saturday\u2019s optional practice. Miroshnichenko was acting as a placeholder for captain Alex Ovechkin<\/a>, who did not skate, but will play against the Sabres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aliaksei Protas was involved in an unfortunate collision with former Washington Capitals teammate Nic Dowd during a recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5129],"tags":[149,5317,5,4,74,39,5316],"class_list":{"0":"post-540644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vegas-golden-knights","8":"tag-golden-knights","9":"tag-goldenknights","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-vegas","13":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","14":"tag-vegasgoldenknights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116347680781939628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}