ARLINGTON, Va.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The Washington Capitals have\u00a0recalled\u00a0forward\u00a0Ilya Protas\u00a0from\u00a0the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League (AHL),\u00a0senior vice president and general manager Chris Patrick\u00a0announced today.<\/p>\n
Protas,\u00a019, has recorded\u00a0a team-high\u00a062\u00a0points (28g,\u00a034a)\u00a0in 66\u00a0games\u00a0with Hershey\u00a0this season. The 6\u20196\u201d, 225-pound\u00a0forward\u00a0leads AHL rookies\u00a0in points and\u00a0ranks second in goals\u00a0and third in assists\u00a0among first-year players. Among all\u00a0AHL\u00a0skaters,\u00a0Protas\u00a0ranks sixth in points, tied for sixth\u00a0in goals and tied for seventh in power-play goals (10).\u00a0Protas\u00a0leads\u00a0the Bears in goals, points, power-play goals, power-play points (17), shots (141) and plus-minus\u00a0(+16). On April 4 against Hartford, Protas recorded\u00a0a career-high\u00a0six points (1g, 5a), which marked the AHL\u2019s first six-point game since 2019.<\/p>\n
Protas spent last season with\u00a0the\u00a0Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), where he\u00a0ranked second in the OHL in scoring with 124 points (50g, 74a) in 61 games.\u00a0Protas\u00a0also ranked second in the OHL in plus-minus (+58), tied for second in assists and third in goals and game-winning goals (8).\u00a0The Vitebsk, Belarusnative\u00a0became the first player since Alex DeBrincat in 2014-15 to score 50 goals in his first OHL season, while his 2.03 points-per-game rate was the highest by a Windsor player over a full season since Jason Spezza (2.09) in 2000-01.\u00a0Protas\u00a0added 25 points (5g, 20a) in 12 postseason games, which led\u00a0all skaters through the first two rounds of the OHL Playoffs.\u00a0Protas was\u00a0the recipient of the William Hanley Trophy, presented annually to theLeague\u2019s Most Sportsmanlike Player as voted by OHL General Managers,\u00a0and named to the OHL Second All-Star Team.<\/p>\n
During the 2023-24 season, Protas recorded 51 points (14g, 37a) in 37 games with the Des Moines Buccaneers of the United States Hockey League (USHL). Protas led USHL rookies in assists and ranked tied for second among first-year players in power-play goals (6) and third in points. In addition, Protas led Des Moines in assists and power-play goals, while his 51 points ranked second on the team.<\/p>\n
Protas split the 2022-23 season\u00a0between the Under-17 and Under-18 Belarus national teams, recording 34 points (19g, 15a) in 29 games with the Under-17s and\u00a0nine\u00a0points (5g, 4a) in 10 games with the Under-18s.<\/p>\n
The Capitals selected Protas in the third round (75th overall) of the 2024 NHL Draft. Ilya\u2019s older brother, Aliaksei, was drafted by the Capitals in the third round (91st overall) of the 2019 NHL Draft and has recorded 168\u00a0points (67g,\u00a0101a) in\u00a0317\u00a0career\u00a0games with Washington. Aliaksei and Ilya Protas are the second set of brothers in franchise history to be selected by\u00a0the Capitals, joining Yvon Corriveau (19th overall, 1985) and Rick Corriveau (168th overall, 1991).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Va.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The Washington Capitals have\u00a0recalled\u00a0forward\u00a0Ilya Protas\u00a0from\u00a0the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League (AHL),\u00a0senior vice president and general…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5114],"tags":[191,5,4,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-544408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-capitals","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-washington","12":"tag-washington-capitals","13":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116359991787837498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544408","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=544408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}