Hershey Bears Rookies Protas, Cristall Combine for 11 Points in 8-1 Rout

Ilya Protas became the first Hershey Bears player to post a six-point game in more than 15 years Saturday night, anchoring a line that erupted for six goals and lifted a reeling club through an 8-1 rout of the Hartford Wolf Pack at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford.

Protas finished with a career-high six points (1g, 5a), a feat no Bears player had matched since Mathieu Perreault recorded six assists on November 14, 2010, earning him first-star honors across the AHL's full slate of Saturday games. Fellow first-year Washington Capitals prospect Andrew Cristall answered with his first professional hat trick and five points (3g, 2a). Together, the two rookies combined for 11 points, and the Protas-Cristall-Bogdan Trineyev line accounted for six of Hershey's eight goals on the night.

The performance couldn't have come at a more pressing moment. Hershey (29-29-6-3) had dropped three straight heading into Saturday and sat fifth in the Atlantic Division with 65 points through 66 games, just one point clear of sixth-place Springfield and three behind fourth-place Bridgeport. Head coach Derek King acknowledged the weight postgame, saying the Bears knew "how hard" those two points were to earn. With Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's simultaneous 6-2 defeat of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, Hershey's magic number to clinch a 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs berth dropped from 10 to six.

Protas's season numbers now read like a rookie award submission. He leads all AHL first-year players in scoring with 62 points (28g, 34a) in 66 games, a four-point margin over Quinn Hutson, and ranks sixth in overall league scoring. Cristall sits at 57 points (19g, 38a) in 67 games, one point behind Hutson for second in the rookie race. Both are in their first professional seasons.

Elsewhere Saturday, Aaron Huglen scored a natural hat trick as part of a four-point performance to pace WBS Scranton's 6-2 win over Lehigh Valley at PPL Center in Allentown. It was the first hat trick of Huglen's professional career. A Roseau, Minnesota native who posted 73 points (32g, 41a) across four seasons at the University of Minnesota, Huglen was originally drafted by the Buffalo Sabres in the fourth round of the 2019 NHL Draft before signing a two-year AHL contract with WBS for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons. The performance earned him second-star recognition for the night and pushed WBS to 43-16-6-2.

Third-star honors went to Henderson's Braeden Bowman, who delivered a standout showing just two days after being reassigned from the Vegas Golden Knights. The undrafted forward had posted 26 points (8g, 18a) at the NHL level this season before returning to Henderson on April 2, 2026. He had signed a two-year entry-level contract with Vegas in March 2025 after working his way through Henderson's system; returning without missing a beat is as clear a statement as any about what he is now capable of at either level.