Sam Anas signed a one-year AHL deal with the Hershey Bears last offseason and promptly helped them win a Calder Cup championship.
Now, Anas, a Potomac, Maryland native and former member of the Washington Little Caps and Team Maryland youth programs, is moving overseas for the first time in his hockey career.
KHL club Dinamo Minsk announced that they have signed the former AHL leading scorer to a contract on Monday. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
In his first season with his hometown team’s farm club, Anas put up 21 points (13g, 8a) in 41 games. During the postseason he skated on a highly successful Bears third line with former Dinamo Minsk player Aliaksei Protas and Hendrix Lapierre. In 20 playoff games en route to winning the Calder Cup, Anas tallied 12 points (4g, 8a).
Anas won the Cup alongside his good buddy Joe Snively who is also a former Little Cap and attended high school with Anas at Landon School where they both played in the Mid-Atlantic Prep Hockey League.
“I grew up a die-hard Caps fan,” Anas said at Hershey’s Cup celebration. “My parents were at the ’98 Finals, Game Four when the Caps lost. I grew up idolizing all those players. It’s truly special to be in this organization and to win it with Snively, too, I think. We grew up, we trained together, we went to high school together, we played together for a year. We won a state championship together as Landon Bears, so it’s only fitting that we got the job done together now.
“It’s amazing,” he continued. “These last few days I can’t even put into words. I feel like I’ve had chills and smiling, and maybe a couple drinks here and there. It’s just been awesome.”
Anas made his professional debut with the Iowa Wild during the 2016-17 season after two years in the USHL with the Youngstown Phantoms and three more years playing college hockey at Quinnipiac University. In his AHL career, Anas has appeared in 398 games for the Bears, Wild, Utica Comets, and Springfield Thunderbirds, recording 305 points. His best season came during the 2019-20 campaign when he led the league in scoring, collecting 70 points from 63 games for Iowa.
Anas becomes the sixth 2023 Calder Cup champion Bears player to sign with a new team, joining Mason Morelli, Garrett Pilon, Shane Gersich, Henrik Borgstrom, and Zach Fucale out the door. The Capitals also did not tender qualifying offers to Gabriel Carlsson and Kody Clark.
Headline photo: Ian Oland/RMNB
