Ilya Protas made his highly anticipated NHL debut for the Washington Capitals against the Toronto Maple Leafs on April 8. To make the special day even better, Caps head coach Spencer Carbery had Protas start the game on a line with his older brother Aliaksei Protas and the legendary Alex Ovechkin.
While Protas’s first shift was uneventful in the grand scheme of things, that brief 17-second stint on the ice may haunt him for the rest of his career. The 19-year-old Belarusian recently relived the nightmarish moment with his brother, as the two sat down for a Russian-language interview with BetNews.
“I skate out, look around, everyone’s lined up,” Ilya said, as translated by Google Translate. “I look over: Lyokha (Aliaksei) on my right. Alexander Mikhailovich (Ovechkin) beside him. Then I look across and see [John Tavares] taking the faceoff. Dylan Strome reminded me before the game, ‘That guy was second in the league on faceoffs.’ I said, ‘Well… this should be interesting.'”
Right before the puck drop, Maple Leafs star winger William Nylander apparently decided to show some love to the debuting forward and his older brother. Nylander, who has experience playing alongside his brother, Alex Nylander, in the NHL, clearly recognized the magnitude of the moment.
“Nylander actually congratulated us,” Aliaksei said. “He said, ‘Congratulations, guys.'”
With those niceties out of the way, Tavares, a veteran of 17 NHL seasons, easily defeated the younger Protas during the opening draw.
“Failed the test, lost the faceoff,” Ilya said. “Then, honestly, I don’t remember much, but I remember how it ended. I iced the puck. And in that moment, I completely forgot that rule existed – just nerves. I thought I crossed center. I didn’t. I iced it. I realized, losing the draw and icing the puck… pretty ideal way to start your debut. I was nervous.”
The interviewers then asked whether Ilya was scared to see how Ovechkin would react to his rookie mistake.
“I came back to the bench,” Ilya said. “He goes, ‘What happened? Nervous?’ I said, ‘Yeah, a little bit.'”
After icing the puck, the trio had to remain on the ice for the ensuing defensive-zone faceoff, which also did not go in the young center’s favor.
“Second faceoff didn’t go my way either,” Ilya said. “Then their center drove toward the net. I don’t remember exactly whether he cut behind me or what. I started skating backward. He gave me a little push. I clipped skates and went down a bit.”
“You realize, ‘Well, it literally can’t get worse now,'” Aliaksei jokingly responded. “And then you go upward.”
Once that challenging first shift ended, though, Ilya settled in and had an effective first night in the NHL, skating in the Capitals’ top six and seeing power play ice time. At the end of the game, Protas finished with 15:37 of total ice time. During his minutes, he recorded his first career point, one shot block, and went 6-8 in the faceoff circle.
With him on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals finished with a positive differential in scoring chances (+2), and they did not give up a single high-danger chance to the Maple Leafs. Ilya would get into three more games for the Caps to end his first stint in the NHL, finishing with four total points (1g, 3a).
At training camp in the fall, Protas is expected to compete for a full-time NHL role in the 2026-27 season. He spent most of this past year in the AHL with the Hershey Bears, where he won Rookie of the Year after recording 66 points (29g, 37a) in 69 games.
