skated with the two for the first time at practice on Wednesday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s a childhood dream come true,\u201d Protas said after the skate. \u201cIt\u2019s just unbelievable. I couldn\u2019t believe for a second. I was shaky for a bit. It\u2019s special, for sure. I can\u2019t wait until tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Protas heads into his NHL debut after playing just 66 games at the pro level for the AHL\u2019s Hershey Bears this season, during which he recorded 62 points (28g, 34a). He departed the AHL with a four-point lead over Quinn Hutson for the league\u2019s rookie scoring lead this year and also ranks sixth in overall AHL scoring, the only rookie placed in the top 10.<\/p>\n
With just four games remaining on their regular-season slate, the Capitals were running out of time to give Protas his debut this year, but he says that process wasn\u2019t weighing on his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it\u2019s just cool to be here,\u201d Protas said. \u201cObviously, you\u2019re thinking about it because it\u2019s your childhood dream, but you don\u2019t want to force it. You know your time is going to come, and you just got to focus on the next day, next game, next practice, and step by step. That\u2019s what I was doing in Hershey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carbery has been open about his desire to see Protas in a game this year and spoke about why the team finally decided to go through with his recall this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a couple factors play in, the obvious one being the season that he\u2019s having and how well he\u2019s played of late through this last stretch, but ultimately through the entire season,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cSo, his play, and then the second part, I think, would be, with where we\u2019re at, we\u2019re still fighting and hanging on to stay in this race. I think his coming in at this moment for our team could potentially give us a jolt of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carbery spoke about what he hopes to see from Protas in terms of playing alongside two of the Capitals\u2019 top-five-on-five players, the elder Protas and Wilson. The hulking trio of forwards are all at least 6-foot-4-inches tall and weigh at least 225 pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. and give us some balance with three lines,\u201d Carbery said. I think the insulation in him being able to communicate with his brother and his brother helping him through, and then also Willy\u2019s a really easy winger to play with.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Wilson may be easy to play with, Protas thinks lining up next to one of the NHL\u2019s most talked-about players is a bit of a daunting task. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m more nervous to play with him than my brother,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Carbery also elaborated on what he believes Protas has done this season inside his game to make him an NHL option for the Capitals so early in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he\u2019s shown in the past is that he\u2019s a good 200-foot centerman who is really intelligent, skates really well for a bigger guy,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cI think where I\u2019m curious to see and what he\u2019s demonstrated at the American League level is he\u2019s shown a knack for being able to get in and around the net, make small plays, run a half wall on a power play. His skill at creating offense five-on-five and on the power play has been really elite.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to put too much pressure on him or try to overstate, but what he\u2019s accomplished in the American Hockey League this year from a production standpoint is up there. When you start to look at points per game, his age, all that stuff, it\u2019s really, really impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Protas concurred with his new bench boss\u2019s evaluation, also crediting the steps he has taken to become a more complete player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s my 200-foot game, responsibility on three zones on the ice, and that\u2019s what I was kind of learning and developing down there,\u201d Protas said. \u201cIt was great because we have really good coaching staff, and they helped me with everything, and I was watching a lot of clips, just to get better every day, and I think the most improvement is in the 200-foot game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Protas will play his first game against the Toronto Maple Leafs at 7:30 pm on Wednesday. Whether he sticks with the Capitals after that will probably remain up in the air, as the Bears have two crucial games next weekend to determine their playoff positioning in the AHL\u2019s Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilya Protas will make his NHL debut for the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night. Head coach Spencer Carbery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5114],"tags":[191,5,4,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-547148","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\/116368524133419778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547148","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=547148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}