Milton Gastrin was thrown directly into the fire for his AHL debut on Thursday night.
The 18-year-old forward, wearing jersey number 29, was inserted into the Hershey Bears’ lineup for Game 1 of their second-round playoff series against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Gastrin makes his debut with Sonny Milano out due to injury, skating on the team’s third line with Wyatt Bongiovanni and Brett Leason.
“Fun to be out there,” Gastrin said at the first intermission. “Just trying to do my thing, trying to work hard, trying to get to the net, win battles. We just gotta keep doing that. It’s fun. Best hockey of the year, so just fun to be here.”
Gastrin, drafted by the Capitals in the second round of the 2025 NHL Draft, was recently re-assigned to the Bears after finishing his season with MoDo Hockey in the Swedish HockeyAllsvenskan. With MoDo, Gastrin recorded 24 points (10g, 14a) in 39 regular-season games and four points (1g, 3a) in 13 playoff games.
At the national team level, Gastrin won a gold medal with Sweden at the 2026 World Junior Championship. He finished the tournament with zero points in six games, averaging 9:35 of ice time per game.
The Bears are playing the Penguins in a best-of-five series after sweeping the Bridgeport Islanders out of the first round.
