The Washington Capitals acquired Lars Eller in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night. Hendrix Lapierre, the AHL’s reigning playoffs MVP, appears likely to come out of the lineup full time, ceding his role to Eller.
“Yeah, I just think it’s it’s a situation where we’re trying to find a little bit of stability on that line,” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery explained on Thursday. “So [Lars] will get a crack at playing there. We’ll see where it goes.”
The Eller acquisition not only has short-term implications to help the third line immediately, but also long-term ones as well. Eller is under contract for one more season, meaning the trade is a stopgap measure to buy time for Lapierre to develop. With the Capitals sending Mike Sgarbossa down to the Hershey Bears, Lapierre will remain with the Capitals and get the chance to learn from the 35-year-old Eller, who is more of a two-way center, who excels at faceoffs (winning 56 percent this season).
“If Lappy comes out of the lineup, he’s a young player that has a bright future in this league and sometimes it takes a little bit longer to develop and grow into an effective NHL player,” Carbery said. “Lappy can play in this league all day long. He’s shown it. He’s had success in this league. It’s just as a young player becoming consistent with that and working at that. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time for that to come to fruition.”
Lapierre has struggled to find his groove this season. The Caps control the puck considerably less when he’s on the ice (44.0 percent during his shifts compared to 47.1 percent when he’s on the bench), but more importantly, individually, Lapierre simply hasn’t produced.
His shot volume is flat from last season, and although he’s increased his quality (nearly doubling his rate of scoring chances), they’re just not hitting the back of the net. Despite generating 1.9 expected goals in total, Lapierre has converted none. Only 11 NHL forwards have more xGs without a goal. Combined with his defensive shortcomings – no Caps forward sees opponents get a higher rate of high-danger chances and only 18 forwards in the whole league have it worse – and his struggles in the faceoff dot – he has a team-worst 35.8 winning percentage among all regular centers – Lapierre still has a ways to go before he can secure a jersey every night.
“For us, we’re just trying to help Lappy become the absolute best NHL player he can possibly be, and we know he’s a big part of our future and our organization moving forward,” Carbery said.
