Hendrix Lapierre finds himself in the same boat this offseason that he was in last summer.
Lapierre will become a restricted free agent on July 1 for a second straight year, looking for another contract after signing for just one year and $850k last July. The 2025-26 season was Lapierre’s first spent exclusively in the NHL with the Capitals after a highly successful AHL career with the Hershey Bears, during which he won two Calder Cup championships and was named the 2024 AHL playoff MVP.
The 2020 first-round pick has yet to blossom in the NHL, recording just 16 points (4g, 12a) in 74 games this past year. After being given another look down the middle to start the year, Lapierre eventually was forced back onto the wing by rookie Justin Sourdif, and ended up playing on average just 8:50 of ice time per game.
“I think he showed some versatility, right?” Capitals general manager Chris Patrick said on Monday. “He went on the wing; he played center. He showed that you can move him around the lineup a little bit. I think he did get some opportunities higher up with some better players, and I think probably he’d admit that he didn’t do as well as he would have hoped with that. I think for him, he’s shown that he can play in this league and play a solid veteran-type game, limit his mistakes, and now he needs to show that he can produce and be a point-getting guy with his skill set.”
To Lapierre’s credit, the Capitals were tremendous whenever he was on the ice at five-on-five this season, seeing 54.7 percent of shot attempts, 56 percent of expected goals, 55.9 percent of scoring chances, and 59.2 percent of high-danger chances during his minutes.
However, to stick with the Capitals longterm, Lapierre will likely need to transition to becoming a winger full-time, as Ilya Protas seems likely to step into the NHL full-time next year. The Caps are set to have Protas, Sourdif, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Dylan Strome as favorites to fill the four center spots. Patrick was particularly impressed by what the 19-year-old Belarusian did in his four-game, end-of-season cameo.
“Yeah, definitely gave me more comfort in [penciling him into the lineup next year],” Patrick said. “I think we have to look at what our full team looks like. How does he factor into that? Is he going to get the right opportunity? He did really well playing with Aliaksei and Tom, too. So, if he’s playing there, who goes kind of lower in the lineup? But it was certainly good to see how well he fared in the NHL in a really tough part of the season when everybody’s really competing hard for points.”
The Capitals also plan to target another top-six forward, which would likely leave Lapierre in a battle for a spot in the team’s bottom six. Given his rock-solid analytics, Lapierre appears suited to play a more limited role like that again.
With a projected $36.6 million in cap space, there is little to no chance that Lapierre ends up a cap casualty. However, he is no longer waivers-exempt, so for the rest of his time with the Capitals, he will need to pass through waivers if the team ever tries to send him down to the AHL.
