{"id":586770,"date":"2026-04-06T22:43:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T22:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586770\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T22:43:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T22:43:22","slug":"capitals-call-up-top-prospect-protas-ahead-of-potential-nhl-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586770\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitals call up top prospect Protas ahead of potential NHL debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">It appears the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/washington-capitals\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Capitals<\/a> will be adding one more reinforcement for the final four-game stretch of their season, hoping to make the playoffs for the 17th time in 19 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">On Monday, the team announced that have they recalled forward prospect Ilya Protas from the AHL\u2019s Hershey Bears.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tweet-body_root__YlarM\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"auto\">The Washington Capitals have recalled forward Ilya Protas from the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League (AHL). The 19-year-old leads AHL rookies and ranks sixth among all skaters in points this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Protas, 19, has 28 goals and 34 assists for 62 points in 66 games with Hershey this season, good for sixth in AHL scoring, and first among AHL rookies. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">The Belarussian national was selected by Washington in the third round (75th overall) of the 2024 NHL Entry Draft. While not an especially ballyhooed prospect at the time, Protas\u2019 play since getting drafted has hypercharged the excitement around him. Last season, playing with the OHL\u2019s Windsor Spitfires, he tallied 50 goals and 74 assists, finishing second in the OHL with 124 points in 61 games. He then contributed five goals and 20 assists for 25 points in 12 postseason games for Windsor. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Protas\u2019 dominance in the OHL, combined with his impressive play in the AHL this season, has made him one the most anticipated prospects across the NHL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">The 6\u20196\u2033, 225-pound winger was ranked as the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/2025-26-nhl-prospect-pool-breakdown-washington-capitals-top-10-leonard-hutson-cristall\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fourth-best Capitals prospect<\/a> by Daily Faceoff\u2019s prospect analyst Steven Ellis last summer. Ellis noted that Protas is \u201ca huge forward who has improved his skating and clearly knows how to shoot.\u201d The top two prospects in that ranking, forward Ryan Leonard and defenseman Cole Hutson, have already joined the Capitals.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">With <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/teams\/nhl-standings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">87 points through 78 games<\/a>, Washington sits three points back of both the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/philadelphia-flyers\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> for the third spot in the Metropolitan Division, and the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/ottawa-senators\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ottawa Senators<\/a> for the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">The Capitals will visit the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" href=\"https:\/\/theleafsnation.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" hreflang=\"en\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> on Wednesday, before capping off a <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/nhl-weekly-schedule\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">three-game road trip<\/a> against the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/pittsburgh-penguins\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It appears the Washington Capitals will be adding one more reinforcement for the final four-game stretch of their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-586770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}