HERSHEY, PA — The Hershey Bears have many accomplished veteran players on their roster, but when they suit up against the Cleveland Monsters on Thursday night, they’ll be led in goals and points by a newcomer.

Nineteen-year-old rookie Ilya Protas leads the Bears with 10 points in 14 games and is tied for first in goals (5) with veteran Matt Strome, who scored Hershey’s Calder Cup-winning goal in 2024.

The last rookie to finish a season leading the Hershey Bears in points was Connor McMichael, who tallied 27 points (14g, 13a) in 33 games during the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season. The last rookie player to lead the team in goals was Ethen Frank, who scored 30 goals during the 2022-23 campaign. Both are in the NHL and currently play for the Washington Capitals.

“To be honest, it’s not what I was expecting,” Protas said to RMNB outside the locker room at Giant Center, Tuesday. “But it’s awesome to like collect points and give you a little confidence. I think it’s my teammates. They help me a lot. And especially this week, I played like with Bogey (Bogdan Trineyev) and Matt (Strome). And yeah, they did everything for me.”

Protas jumped atop Hershey’s leaderboard after his first professional three-in-three, where typically a younger player will struggle with consistency. Instead, Protas played a major part in Hershey sweeping all three games, notching five points (3g, 2a).

“It was a little bit tough, the first three-in-three,” Protas said. “But when you start the game, you kind of lock in and focus on that. And you don’t even think what happened previous couple of days. And yeah, you’re just in the game and try to give your best effort.”

The 6-foot-6 Protas scored a goal and authored the game-winning assist on an Andrew Cristall tally to lead Hershey to a 2-1 victory over the Syracuse Crunch, Friday. Protas added another goal and assist in Hershey’s 4-3 last-minute victory over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at PPL Center Saturday, with his linemates, Strome and Trineyev, scoring the other three goals. In a rematch against the Phantoms at Giant Center on Sunday, Protas scored in his third consecutive game, backhanding a shot that ricocheted off the end boards into the net.

“We played great,” Protas said. “It was pretty good week for us. We got to just keep going.”

Head coach Derek King has not brought Protas along slowly, playing the young Belarusian centerman in all situations — a rarity for a teenager at this level. Protas has been a staple in the top six at five-on-five, centering either the first or second line and receiving heavy minutes.

Protas plays on the Bears’ first power-play unit and is frequently tasked with skating the puck into the zone after a slingshot. He’s also seen some time on the penalty kill, takes important faceoffs at both ends of the ice, and helps close out games.

“He’s coming along nice,” Bears head coach Derek King said of Protas. “I can’t take all the credit for him. But he’s a pro. You can tell he’s been around a hockey family. And we’ve talked about it before. He just keeps getting better and better every week.”

While the points are nice and may be flashy to fans and journalists, Protas knows that how he’ll really impress Capitals brass is everything else.

“The most important thing is continue to improve my game,” Protas said. “I have to continue improvement in my game. 200-foot. And especially D zone because, you know, guys are bigger, stronger here. It’s pro hockey already. So I’ll try to keep doing that.

“I said it at the start of the year. This league is, it’s much different than juniors.”

After being a third-round pick of the Capitals, Protas had an eye-opening rookie season with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. As an 18-year-old, he lit the lamp 50 times and recorded 124 points in 61 games — good for the second-most in the league. Protas was awarded the William Hanley Trophy, presented annually to the OHL’s most sportsmanlike player, and was named to the 2024-25 OHL Second All-Star Team.

Over the summer, older brother Aliaksei served as Ilya’s coach as they trained in their native Belarus, with Little Pro saying he did whatever his coach told him to do. “You see how he works and you’ve got to work the same way,” Ilya said at Rookie Camp in Annapolis.

Protas frequently speaks to his family and to his older brother, Aliaksei. He’s noticed that his brother often shares Hershey Bears Instagram posts of his AHL successes — like his first AHL goal in October.

“I think he’s happy for me, but you know, he wants me to not stop because in this league, if you want to be up in the big league, you got to continue and be consistent every single game,” Protas said. “You can’t be like good for a couple of games and then you will have a game off. It’s not what he wants me to do. He wants to be… He wants me to be a consistent player who is always responsible and play great, strong 200-foot game.”

When Protas takes the ice on Thursday, he’ll likely have a new linemate, Ivan Miroshnichenko. The Bears’ leading goal-scorer last season, Miroshnichenko, is healthy again after missing the last 12 Hershey games due to an upper-body injury. Bogdan Trineyev, Ilya’s roommate and mentor, will remain on Protas’s other side. The three could be heard speaking to each other in Russian as they did drills during their last full practice before leaving for Cleveland.

Protas is watching Capitals games and is staying attuned to the storylines in Washington. His dream is to play alongside his brother in the NHL someday. Though with how well he’s playing, he may realize it sooner rather than later.