{"id":557740,"date":"2026-04-22T06:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T06:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557740\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T06:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T06:36:15","slug":"capitals-prospects-gucciardi-protas-stevenson-help-hershey-to-game-1-win-to-open-calder-cup-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557740\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitals Prospects Gucciardi, Protas & Stevenson Help Hershey To Game 1 Win To Open Calder Cup Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Capitals<\/a> saw their prospects put on a show to open the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs, as the Hershey Bears got some big showings for a Game 1 win over the Bridgeport Islanders.<\/p>\n

Prospect defenseman David Gucciardi, taken in the seventh round of the 2022 NHL Draft, opened the scoring late in the third period, jumping up in the rush and going on an odd-man break with Henrik Rybinski before putting a shot past Marcus H\u00f6gberg.<\/p>\n

Gucciardi, playing in his AHL rookie season following four years at Michigan State, had three goals and 10 assists for 13 points, along with 55 penalty minutes and a plus\/minus rating of plus-3, through 52 regular-season games for the Bears.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Then, with time ticking down in regulation, Ilya Protas<\/a>, out with Bogdan Trineyev and others to play 5-on-6 and protect the late lead, buried an empty netter with two seconds to go to seal the 2-0 victory.<\/p>\n

Protas finished the regular season as the AHL’s rookie scoring leader with 66 points in 69 games.<\/p>\n

Clay Stevenson<\/a> posted a shutout with 18 saves. He spent the final stretch of the NHL regular season up with the Capitals with Charlie Lindgren<\/a> nursing an injury, and finished his 2025-26 AHL campaign with a .912 save percentage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals saw their prospects put on a show to open the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5114],"tags":[771,191,908,3725,62920,18097,4301,5,590,4,16463,190,109,5222],"class_list":{"0":"post-557740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-capitals","8":"tag-calder-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-capitals","10":"tag-charlie-lindgren","11":"tag-clay-stevenson","12":"tag-david-gucciardi","13":"tag-henrik-rybinski","14":"tag-hershey-bears","15":"tag-hockey","16":"tag-ilya-protas","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-protas","19":"tag-washington","20":"tag-washington-capitals","21":"tag-washingtoncapitals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116446980231495794","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557740","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=557740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}