Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Ilya Protas was new to the Hershey Bears last fall, but they weren’t new to him.
The rookie standout’s older brother, Aliaksei, had come through Hershey on the way to a full-time career with the parent Washington Capitals. Ilya came to Hershey knowing full well the standards, resources and expectations that come with playing for the AHL’s senior-most franchise.
Now, the Bears know what he’s all about, too.
On Monday afternoon, Ilya was recalled by the Capitals and is poised to make his NHL debut alongside his brother. Hershey’s leading scorer at just 19 years old, Protas has 62 points (28 goals, 34 assists) in 66 games to lead the AHL in rookie scoring and rank sixth overall. Those 62 points are the sixth-highest total by a teenager in AHL history, and six of them came last Saturday night in an 8-1 win at Hartford, where the forward scored once and churned out five assists.
Washington selected Protas in the third round of the 2024 NHL Draft. Five years earlier they selected Aliaksei, and he played parts of three seasons with the Bears and won the Calder Cup in 2023. He broke out with a 30-goal season for Washington in 2024-25 and has notched 24 goals so far this season.
That 2023 Calder Cup run, one in which Aliaksei finished with 13 points (five goals, eight assists) in 20 games, is something that Ilya watched as it unfolded.
“It was really special,” he said. “He just told me to enjoy Hershey because it’s such a cool place, and people in the city live hockey. You get recognized in the stores. It makes you bring your best effort every night. That’s the coolest thing about it. You’re always playing in an almost sold-out barn, and it’s the best.”
Now Ilya will be stepping from one playoff race into another as he joins a Capitals team with no margin for error with a week left in the NHL’s regular season. The Capitals are five points out of a playoff spot with four games left, beginning tonight in Toronto.
Losing their leading scorer will present a challenge for the Bears, who visit Charlotte this weekend as they try to lock down a berth in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Hershey has not missed the postseason since 2018, and has only failed to qualify for the Calder Cup Playoffs twice since affiliating with the Capitals in 2005.
A native of Vitebsk, Belarus, Protas came to North America at 17 to play junior hockey with Des Moines (USHL) and Windsor (OHL). Although he has had Russian-speaking teammates in Ivan Miroshnichenko, Alex Suzdalev and Bogdan Trineyev in Hershey, he already had strong English-language skills, something that made his transition that much smoother.
With his development and production – and a selection to the AHL All-Star Classic in February – this had already been an excellent season for Protas. Now an NHL promotion is another significant step. Perhaps the Capitals reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and he stays in Washington. Or maybe he returns to the Bears and has a chance to measure himself in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Either way, it’s an opportunity to build on his success even further.
“That’s all my teammates – how good they are to me on the ice, off the ice,” Protas said of his adjustment to Hershey. “They always help me in every situation. I am really fortunate to have that group.”
Now he will have his brother as a teammate after making his own path in Hershey.
“It is a really special moment for us, for our family.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.