With the final two weekends of the American Hockey League season looming, we are also approaching voting season for the league's individual awards.
Since the 1947-48 season, the AHL has presented the Dudley "Red" Garrett Memorial Award annually in recognition of that season's outstanding rookie player. Today, the award is voted on by coaches, players and members of the media representing each of the league's 32 cities.
Incredibly, the Hershey Bears only boast one recipient in the award's history, when goaltender Ron Hextall took home the honors following a dominant 1985-86 campaign that saw him lead the entire AHL that season in appearances (53), wins (30), saves (1,462), and shutouts (5).
For the first time in nearly 40 years, there is a distinct possibility that a Bear could take home the league's rookie of the year honors, as the case could be made that the Chocolate and White have not one, but two outstanding freshmen players who could merit heavy consideration in Ilya Protas and Andrew Cristall; at minimum, it would not be surprising if at least one of the duo earns a spot on the AHL's All-Rookie Team.
Both Protas and Cristall will face strong competition from a stellar rookie crop around the league that includes forward Quinn Hutson of the Bakersfield Condors, defenseman Tyson Jugnauth of the Coachella Valley Firebirds, goaltender Sergei Murashov of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. But there is a case for why the pair of Hershey rookies should be crowned the AHL's outstanding rookie for the 2025-26 campaign when it's all said and done:
The younger brother of former Bear and 2023 Calder Cup champion Aliaksei Protas has carved out his own path playing as a center, spending much of the season anchoring Hershey's first line between a rotating cast of wingers. Ilya Protas' 62 points not only leads the Bears, but also leads all AHL rookies and ranks sixth in overall league scoring.
Protas has done all of this as a teenager. He will not turn 20 until after free agency for the 2026-27 season opens. The fact that he has done this before his 20th birthday is nothing short of incredible, especially when several promising AHL rookies are older and more physically developed and/or have an additional partial season of pro experience under their belts.
He leads Hershey in goals (28), power-play goals (10), points (62), power-play points (17), plus-minus (+16), and shots (141). Protas' 28 goals are the most in a single season by a teenaged player for the Bears, breaking the previous mark of 20 established by Réal Chevrefils in 1951-52.
His .94 points per game as a 19-year-old is neck-and-neck with Bakersfield's 24-year-old Quinn Hutson (.95) for the rookie lead. Per QuantHockey, In a historical context in this category, he is outpacing several accomplished NHL players who played in the AHL at 19, including Patrice Bergeron (.90), Patrik Elias (.85), Martin Necas (.81), and Kevin Fiala (.76).
Under first-year Bears head coach Derek King, Protas has been deployed in virtually every situation - including both the power play and penalty kill - and has been a veritable Swiss Army knife for the Bears. Protas even has a share of the league's longest goal scoring streak this season, netting eight goals over a stretch of seven consecutive games from Nov. 14-29.
After posting the league's first six-point game since 2019 against Hartford last Saturday, Protas received his first NHL call-up earlier this week and made his major league debut last night in Toronto, recording an assist.
And if the Capitals return Protas to Hershey as the Bears make a final push for the Calder Cup Playoffs, Protas will still have the chance to do something that only five other teenaged players have done in 90 seasons of AHL competition, and that's reach the 30-goal plateau.
While the AHL has shifted to a greater emphasis on development in the past 30 years, with NHL general managers encouraging their AHL coaching staff to dress their prized prospects, it is nonetheless impressive to see a first-year player earn a sweater for each of his team's games while battling through the grind of a 72-game season competing against grown men, but that's precisely what Cristall has done in his first season in the pros, while also putting up impressive offensive production, ranking third in rookie scoring with 57 points through 67 games.
The 21-year-old Vancouver native is the only player (never mind rookie) on the Bears this season to have suited up and played in every game; Cristall could be the first Bears rookie to appear in all of his team's games since Travis Boyd in 2015-16, when Hershey played a 76-game schedule.
This is all the more remarkable when you throw into consideration that Cristall could be described by some as undersized, as the 5'10", 187-pound left wing often has to do battle in the corners against defensemen much larger than him.
The 2023 second-round pick of the Capitals has dished out more assists (38) than any other AHL rookie this season, and his 13 power-play assists are tied for the second-most. Should Cristall earn two more assists in Hershey's final five games, he will be the first Bears rookie to reach the 40-assist plateau since defenseman Mike Gaul had 47 helpers in 1997-98. However, it should be noted that Gaul was already in his mid-20s by that point and had played a handful of professional seasons in the ECHL and Europe despite being considered an AHL rookie, whereas Cristall just made the jump from the major junior Western Hockey League.
Cristall is no slouch in the goal-scoring department either - his 19 goals are tied for fifth - and he's provided clutch goals in the form of five game-winners (tied for second, including an overtime goal in January at Charlotte).
AHL media members, team representatives, coaches, and players have until Monday to cast their votes for various league awards, including the Garrett Award. When it comes to voting on the league's outstanding rookie, the decision is a difficult one; voters would be wise to take into consideration Protas's elite goal-scoring ceiling and historic teenage production, and Cristall's ironman durability and playmaking brilliance. All told, with the way things are trending now, both Protas and Cristall are poised to be the first rookie duo in Bears history to finish the season 1-2 in team scoring, and the first pair of Bears rookies to both record 60 points.
It's been some time since a Bear took home the Garret Award, and Hershey has never had a skater take home the league honors. Whether voters favor the point-producing pace of Protas or the consistency and durability of Cristall, one thing is certain: the Chocolate and White have cultivated arguably the AHL's most lethal rookie punch this season. If either player is named the recipient of the Garrett Award, it won't be just a personal milestone - it will be a long-awaited end to a 40-year drought and a definite statement on the current strength of the Capitals' pipeline in The Sweetest Place on Earth.
By Jesse Liebman and Zack Fisch
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
