{"id":227864,"date":"2025-10-16T01:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/227864\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T01:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:26:07","slug":"aliaksei-protas-went-to-lunch-with-spencer-carbery-ahead-of-the-2024-nhl-draft-and-his-mom-asked-if-the-capitals-would-pick-ilya-protas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/227864\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliaksei Protas went to lunch with Spencer Carbery ahead of the 2024 NHL Draft and his mom asked if the Capitals would pick Ilya Protas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Capitals doubled up on Protases when they selected Ilya Protas with a third-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft<\/a>. Five years earlier, the Caps selected Ilya\u2019s older brother, Aliaksei Protas, in the same round at the 2019 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n

Aliaksei, already an established NHL player with the Capitals, attended the 2024 draft in Vegas with his wife, Tatsiana Protas, and mother, Tatyana Protas, in support of his little brother. Spencer Carbery, coming off his first season as head coach of the Caps, was also in town with the rest of the club\u2019s top brass, so he took advantage of the occasion and went out for lunch with the Protas family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to find [another Protas], but there are just those two,\u201d Carbery told 106.7 The Fan\u2019s Sports Junkies on Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cYeah, and that story in itself is crazy. Going back to Vegas \u2013 when Little Pro, when it was his draft year, I was out there, and Big Pro came because his brother was going to be drafted. And I went for lunch with him and Pro\u2019s wife and Pro\u2019s mom. Pro\u2019s dad couldn\u2019t make it, but his mom was there and doesn\u2019t speak any English.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went for lunch, and I have nothing to do with the draft, nothing. So, like, I have no idea who we\u2019re going to pick. And she said \u2013 she told Pro to translate. She goes, \u2018Can you tell Coach Carbs I would really love if you guys would draft my younger son so that they can look after him like they did for you?’\u201d<\/p>\n

While Carbery had no real influence, the Capitals did acquiesce to Tatyana\u2019s request, selecting her youngest son with the 75th overall pick as a coincidence. The Protas family rejoiced in the stands after learning both brothers would be in the same NHL organization.<\/p>\n

To acquire the pick they used to draft Ilya, the Capitals sent their third-round pick (82nd overall) and their fifth-round pick (146th overall) to the New Jersey Devils.<\/p>\n

The draft-day trade mirrored, almost exactly, the same deal the Caps made to draft Aliaksei<\/a>, as they sent the Devils two picks in the 2019 draft to move up to 91st overall in the third round.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was sitting on my phone when I heard Jersey traded the pick to the Caps,\u201d Aliaksei said in Vegas<\/a>. \u201cI was like, \u2018Good!\u2019 Then I heard my name and I\u2019m like, \u2018No way.\u2019 I\u2019m so proud.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a little d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu when I heard it,\u201d he added. \u201cI kind of hoped. For sure, I hoped. It\u2019s nice to be drafted by every team, but for sure, you want to be together. It\u2019s an unbelievable feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two Protas brothers have made the Capitals look like geniuses since being drafted, with Aliaksei posting a career high 66 points (30g, 36a) in the NHL last year, and Ilya recording 124 points (50g, 74a) in 61 games for the OHL\u2019s Windsor Spitfires.<\/p>\n

Despite the age gap, the two are very close<\/a>, spending their summers in Belarus training together. Ilya, over the last year, grew another inch<\/a> and is just as tall as his 6-foot-6 brother. He told reporters at rookie camp<\/a> that he just did whatever Aliaksei told him to do as they prepared for this season.<\/p>\n

\u201c(I focused on) what my coach told me to do \u2014 it was my brother,\u201d Ilya said earlier this fall. \u201cSo what he wanted me to do, I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ilya was one of the final cuts<\/a> from this year\u2019s Capitals Training Camp after playing in four NHL preseason games, including one with Aliaksei in Hershey at Giant Center<\/a>. He has since made his professional debut with the AHL\u2019s Bears, playing in the team\u2019s first two games of their 2025-26 campaign and centering the second line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals doubled up on Protases when they selected Ilya Protas with a third-round pick in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-227864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}