HERSHEY, PA — While Lynden Lakovic and Petr Sikora had a promising opening weekend for the Hershey Bears, another Washington Capitals prospect was kept on the sidelines.
Terik Parascak was a healthy scratch in both of Hershey’s games against the Charlotte Checkers on Saturday and Sunday — a surprising decision from afar considering his pedigree.
Parascak was the Capitals’ first-round pick, 17th overall, in the 2024 NHL Draft, earning the moniker “Super Rookie” during his time in the WHL with Prince George.
After Saturday’s scratch in the home opener, Bears head coach Derek King said Parascak was sitting due to a numbers game before getting more blunt in his assessment of the six-foot, 191-pound winger.
“Well, he’s just, you know, we have so many bodies,” King began. “He’s a young kid. He needs to get in the gym. He needs to work out, get stronger, work on some things in his game. But I had a good conversation with him and told him it’s a process, and we know that.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, trying to develop players, young players, and there’s a way about it,” he continued. “We’re not going to just throw him to the wolves. So it’s probably a good thing he didn’t play tonight. But he’ll eventually get in. It’s just like I said, it’s good to have him here so he can see how the pace is, practice with us, and get his workouts in. And when he gets in the game, he’s ready to go.”
The start of the 2026-27 season marks King’s second year with the Bears and his 14th overall behind an AHL bench as head coach, which includes stints with the Toronto Marlies and Rockford IceHogs. King also played 14 seasons in the NHL as a forward, recording 612 points (261g, 351a) in 830 games during stops with the New York Islanders, Hartford Whalers, Toronto Maple Leafs, and St. Louis Blues.
Parascak’s treatment, at least initially this season, is reminiscent of how the Bears took it slow with forward Alex Suzdalev when he first arrived to the team during the 2023-24 campaign. With similar concerns about his frame, the Bears, then under the guidance of Todd Nelson, scratched Suzdalev in 11-straight games before the Capitals loaned him to Mora IK in the HockeyAllsvenskan — Sweden’s second-tier professional league. Two seasons later, Suzdalev is now coming into his own, beginning this season in the Bears’ top six.
Parascak arrived in Hershey this fall after three prolific seasons with the WHL’s Prince George Cougars. The Capitals selected him 17th overall after he erupted for 105 points (43g, 62a) as a 17-year-old, leading all CHL first-year players in both goals and scoring. He followed that breakout campaign with 82 points in 2024-25 before making his professional debut with Hershey at 18, after Prince George’s elimination from the playoffs.
Parascak returned to Prince George for one final season in 2025-26 and led the Cougars with 79 points (33g, 46a) in 61 games while serving as an alternate captain. He added 17 points (7g, 10a) in 12 playoff games before rejoining Hershey in April as a black ace.
This fall, Parascak, now 20, participated both in Capitals rookie camp and training camp before being assigned to Hershey.
“I haven’t minded his camp at all,” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said. “I think it’s starting to come. I’m starting to see some of the things. I know he jumped out multiple occasions through whether it was practice scenarios or scrimmage scenarios. He’s caught my eye multiple times.”
Adding strength has been a recurring theme throughout Parascak’s development. During an interview with RMNB after his first stint in Hershey in 2025, Parascak identified getting stronger as one of his primary offseason goals.
“The biggest thing for me is to put on some size,” he said then. “I think I’m definitely not the biggest guy, but get a little bit more strength on me, and I think that kind of will translate to a lot of areas in my game. Puck battles are a big one. My skating, I’ll get faster with the more strength I put on, and my shot will get better, too. So, I think just overall strength in the gym is what I’m looking to improve the most.”
Parascak will have ample support both from Bears management and his teammates. Lynden Lakovic, the Bears’ first-round pick in 2025, is currently staying with Parascak in a Hershey hotel and the two plan to room together this season — a good matchup as the pair go through the highs and lows of their rookie campaigns pro.
As Parascak sat this weekend, he was joined in the luxury suites by several other prominent players as a healthy scratch, including the scorer of the Calder Cup-winning goal in 2024, Matt Strome. The checking-line winger, the younger brother of Capitals centerman Dylan Strome, re-signed with the team in August but was not named to the team’s on-ice leadership group or given a jersey to start the year.
When asked about both of those decisions by RMNB [Editor’s note: In my question, I described it as Strome not being part of the “leadership committee”], King responded, “Why am I going to put an ‘A’ on him and he’s going to sit in the stands? What, he’s going to cheer on the fans?”
“He’s part of our leadership committee,” he continued. “Nobody ever said he wasn’t. He’s going to be a guy, and he knew that like Smitty (Dalton Smith) and that, they’re going to play so many games a year. They’re not going to play a full season. We have some other guys that are in the lineup full-time that are leaders, so I need guys that are going to be here full-time, like in the lineup all the time, being the leader. But there’s nothing stopping him. He’ll get an A sometimes (he did) last year. He’s always voting. He’s always part of our leadership. So I don’t know where you got that.”
