Ilya Protas earns Garrett Award after record rookie season with Hershey

Ilya Protas did more than win rookie hardware. He gave Hershey a 19-year-old centerpiece who drove the Bears’ offense all season, then carried that momentum straight into Washington’s pipeline.

Protas was named the 2025-26 winner of the Dudley (Red) Garrett Memorial Award on April 23, after leading all AHL rookies with 66 points in 69 games. He finished tied for sixth in the league overall, with 29 goals and 37 assists, and paced Hershey in goals, points, power-play goals, power-play points, shots on goal and plus/minus. For a first-year pro, that is not normal production. It is the kind of season that changes a team’s ceiling.

It also put Protas in rare company. He became only the second Bears player ever to win the league’s rookie award, joining Ron Hextall in 1985-86. His 66 points were the fourth-most by a teenager in AHL history, and the highest total by a Hershey rookie since Craig Fisher posted 66 in 1990-91. The Garrett Award itself has been around since 1947 and is voted on by coaches, players and media from the AHL’s 32 cities, honoring Dudley “Red” Garrett, who died while serving in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II.

The best snapshot of Protas’ value came on April 4 at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford, where he erupted for a goal and five assists in Hershey’s 8-1 win. That six-point night was the first by a Bears player since Mathieu Perreault had six assists on Nov. 14, 2010, and the first by any AHL player since Alan Quine’s 3-goal, 3-assist game on Dec. 27, 2019. Andrew Cristall, Protas and Bogdan Trineyev combined for six goals in that game, a reminder that Hershey was not just getting one-hot-night scoring from its rookie. It was getting a young line that could tilt a game by itself.

Protas also strung together a seven-game goal streak from Nov. 14 to Nov. 29, another sign that his scoring touch was not a flash. He was recalled by Washington on April 6, then made his NHL debut against Toronto on April 8 at Scotiabank Arena, picking up an assist in a 4-0 Capitals win. He became the 42nd player in Capitals history to record a point in his NHL debut, and the 71st Bears player to debut with Washington since the affiliation began in 2005-06.

That makes Protas more than a trophy winner. It makes him the latest proof that Hershey still develops impact talent, and that the Capitals’ next wave may already be arriving with real offense attached.