Ilya Protas earns AHL Top Prospects Team honor for Hershey

Ilya Protas did more than have a strong rookie year in Hershey. He became the first Hershey Bear to make the AHL Top Prospects Team since the league introduced the honor for the 2022-23 season, and the selection put him in a six-man group the league uses to spotlight players it projects as future NHL impact pieces.

The numbers told the story long before the vote came down. Protas, 19, led all AHL rookies and tied for sixth overall with 66 points in 69 games, finishing with 29 goals and 37 assists. He paced Hershey in goals, points, power-play goals with 11, and plus-minus at plus-17, a rare combination of finishing and two-way value that made his season feel bigger than a standard scoring line.

That production also showed up in the way Protas moved through the year. He was named to the AHL All-Rookie Team on April 15, then won the Dudley (Red) Garrett Memorial Award on April 23 as the league’s outstanding rookie. That award is voted on by coaches, players and media representing all 32 AHL cities, and Protas became only the second Bear in franchise history to win it, joining Ron Hextall from 1985-86.

The stretch that pushed him from promising prospect to headliner came in April, when the Washington Capitals recalled him from Hershey on April 6. At that point, he was leading AHL rookies in scoring and sat sixth in the league with 62 points in 66 games. He made his NHL debut that night and recorded an assist in Washington’s 4-0 win over Toronto, a clean jump from the AHL’s most visible developmental stage to the sport’s biggest league.

Protas kept stacking proof after that. The AHL named him Rookie of the Month for April after he posted 11 points in six games for Hershey, and earlier he had earned an invitation to the 2026 AHL All-Star Classic in Rockford, Illinois, held Feb. 10-11. He also met the Top Prospects Team eligibility standards by age and workload, but the bigger message was simpler: Hershey had a rookie centerpiece, and Washington has a prospect whose game traveled everywhere it was asked to go.