With no goals in 6:36 of ice time against the Florida Panthers on Saturday night, Washington Capitals forward Hendrix Lapierre extended his long goalless streak in the NHL. Lapierre last lit the lamp against the Ottawa Senators on February 26, 2024, and has not scored in over a full season’s worth of appearances since — 88 consecutive games — which is the longest active streak in the league.
Part of Lapierre’s inability to find the scoresheet is that he is playing an average of just 8:41 of ice time per game this season, the lowest mark of his career.
“I mean, he’s had a great attitude,” Capitals general manager Patrick said on Friday. “He’s worked really hard, as you guys have all seen. When I watch him from up top, I feel more comfortable when he’s out there than I did last year. I think Carbs feels similar.”
Patrick then brought up the elephant in the room. “But at some point, you do need to see some production or something to force the coach’s hand to play him more and higher in the lineup. I think Hendrix is still looking for that. He’s still looking to have an impact on a game offensively. There’s some games where it looks like he’s maybe got that going a little bit more. But I think, for a lot of young, skilled players, at some point they have to show you, ‘I can do this,’ and, again, force the coach’s hand.”
While Lapierre’s scoring struggles have entered historically bad territory, the Capitals have dominated play during his five-on-five ice time, suggesting there may be another level yet to unlock with the young forward. With Lapierre on the ice this season, the Caps have controlled 56.5 percent of shot attempts, 56.7 percent of expected goals, 59.8 percent of scoring chances, and 61.8 percent of high-danger chances.
All of that possession hasn’t turned into many goals, though, with the Capitals scoring just 13 times and allowing 12 goals themselves during those minutes. Lapierre, who is without a point in his last 12 games as well, is aware of that issue and says he’s trying to turn the tide in the opposite direction.
“I think I can elevate in a lot of areas,” Lapierre told the Capitals’ Mike Vogel. “Obviously, the underlying numbers are relatively good, but I think it’s time for results now. We can say, ‘Oh, when he’s on the ice, good things happen,’ and stuff like that, but myself included, I want results. I want to put the puck in the back of the net and help the team win, be on the ice for goals for.
“I think it’s about attacking more. You know how that goes; when you don’t play that good or maybe the results are not there, maybe you’re a little more hesitant, or you don’t attack as much. I feel like when I had success at the end of two seasons ago and in the AHL, I attack, I make plays, and I hang onto the puck. I feel like right now, I’m overthinking at times. There are a couple of times where I get the puck, and it’s like, ‘Okay, what now?’ and I’m thinking, ‘Don’t turn it over,’ and stuff like that.”
Lapierre has proven he can be a high-scoring talent in professional hockey with the AHL’s Hershey Bears. During the 2023-24 campaign, he posted 17 points (5g, 12a) in 21 regular-season games and later won AHL playoff MVP honors, notching 22 points (7g, 15a) in 20 postseason games en route to winning the 2024 Calder Cup.
Then, after an unsuccessful start with the Capitals last season, he returned to Hershey and recorded 32 points (7g, 25a) in 32 games. Lapierre carried that momentum into the NHL preseason this past fall, tallying seven points (1g, 6a) in five games and again making the Caps out of training camp.
The up-and-down nature to start Lapierre’s NHL career mirrors that of teammate Ethen Frank, who spent parts of four seasons with the Bears before cementing an NHL spot this season. Caps head coach Spencer Carbery recently spoke at length about the potential parallels and whether Lapierre could learn from Frank’s example.
“Lappy is in a unique spot,” Carbery said after practice last Wednesday. “What Franky had to do was prove and show that he could be a reliable NHL player. What I mean by that is, nothing to do with scoring and nothing to do with showing his speed. He had to show that he could get a puck out on the wall, he could be in the right spot in our systems, he could get the puck in when he needed to. That starts as a small role – six, seven, eight minutes a night on the fourth line.
“So then what happens? It doesn’t change anything. We just go, ‘Wow, we can play him every night.’ So, now he plays every night. Okay, what’s the next step? Now, when you get that eight or nine minutes, can you do something with that? Get a half-breakaway, set up a goal, use your skill set. It might be checking, it might be physical. It might be that you’re going to be a physically imposing player, and so you lay three or four big hits in your eight minutes, and now that eight minutes turns into 10.”
Carbery’s observations are illustrated in the exponential increase of Frank’s average ice time this season. After failing to impress during training camp and being returned to the AHL, Frank arrived back in DC after an early-season injury to Pierre-Luc Dubois. In games during October and November, Frank played just 10:39 of ice time per game, better than just Lapierre (9:41) and Sonny Milano (9:32) on the Capitals.
Frank then came on strong in December, particularly impressing after a two-goal game against the Detroit Red Wings. Frank’s average TOI ticked up to 12:58 in the month. Now, especially after a recent three-game goal-scoring streak, the 27-year-old forward has earned near maximum trust with Carbery. He has played 15:29 of ice time per game in January, including a stint on the team’s top line with Alex Ovechkin and Dylan Strome.
The challenge for Lapierre will now be to achieve some of that same incremental success in the final few months of the 2025-26 regular season.
“So for Lap, I think it’s just taking that next step,” Carbery said. “If he is going to be an offensive player in the National Hockey League, he’s making a few more plays. Can he make two or three high-end plays where you get a puck, you attack, you get inside, and it creates a scoring chance, or you get a scoring chance yourself? And it might not end up in the back of the net, but if you do those over time and you increase it by one every five or six [games], now I think that’s where us as coaches, when you watch the film and that, we’re watching that and we’ll say, ‘Wow, this guy’s [improved], get him on the power play, let’s go.’”
For now, though, Lapierre seems to be going backward in Carbery’s books. In January, Lapierre has played an average of just 7:00 minutes of ice time in 9 games, his lowest average in any month of his NHL career. That includes the five October games (9:00) he played under Peter Laviolette in 2021.
