Despite a two-game losing skid, a lot is going right for the Washington Capitals. Returning players are having resurgent seasons, young players have taken the next step in their development, and a bunch of roster additions have been smashing successes. It’s hard to find a problem on the team, as long as you don’t look at the third line.
Using recent centers as a proxy for lines, it’ll jump out at you.
Center
Goals-For %
Strome
66.4
Dubois
61.7
Eller
33.1
Dowd
56.8
The top two lines (via Strome and Dubois) are killing it north of 60 percent. The fourth line (via Dowd) is in the black despite tough assignments. But the third line (via Eller) has been outscored two-to-one.
Again: Eller is just a proxy for the third line. Although he’s been just so-so, the bigger trouble seems to be on his wings: Hendrix Lapierre and Jakub Vrana.
Below is a Goals Above Replacement (GAR) chart from Evolving Hockey, showing Washington forwards. GAR is a catch-all stat, attempting to summarize the player by adding up different compartments of their game, like even-strength offense, even-strength defense, etc. The more to the right the player is, roughly the better. I’ve grayed out everyone but one iteration of the third line.
Evolving Hockey
Vrana and Eller rank below replacement level (i.e. how a hypothetical Hershey call-up might do). Lapierre ranks last, and among 393 NHL forwards he ranks fifth from the bottom.
The sophomore season of the 22 year old has been a slog. In 24 games, he has no goals and just six assists. The Caps have been outscored 10 to 5 when he’s on the ice, which has been less and less as head coach Spencer Carbery tries to limit the damage.
Below is a histogram of every NHL forward’s ice time per game. Despite being nominally on the third, Lapierre and Vrana are playing sub-fourth-line minutes.
Vrana and Lapierre average about ten minutes, near the far left.
It’s a fiasco – made more fiascesque by the absolute successes of every player around them. Those other players, with only a few exceptions, are performing much better when away from Lapierre and Vrana.
Below is a WOWY (with-or-without-you) table for Jakub Vrana’s on-ice partners. It shows how much that player has been on the ice with Vrana (TOI with) and what share of the shot attempts the Caps owned in that time (SA% with) – then it does the same when the player is on the ice without (w/o) Vrana. Very small samples are in yellow.
With Vrana
TOI with
SA% with
TOI w/o
SA% w/o
Diff
Mangiapane
126
47.4
36
52.6
-5.2
Lapierre
91
44.7
17
42.1
+2.6
Fehervary
64
38.9
107
57.9
-19.0
Sandin
56
38.6
115
49.9
-11.3
van Riemsdyk
54
41.8
118
50.1
-8.3
Eller
46
41.1
10
50.0
-8.9
Carlson
44
55.3
128
53.6
+1.7
Chychrun
42
56.9
97
44.8
+12.1
McIlrath
38
30.1
48
50.0
-19.9
Roy
36
42.0
49
47.3
-5.3
Here’s the same report, but for Lapierre.
With Lapierre
TOI with
SA% with
TOI w/o
SA% w/o
Diff
Mangiapane
168
57.1
45
54.8
+2.2
Eller
97
59.1
16
61.1
-2.0
Vrana
91
44.7
10
37.1
+7.6
Fehervary
83
47.1
137
53.9
-6.8
van Riemsdyk
71
59.8
150
49.4
+10.5
Carlson
67
62.6
154
53.2
+9.4
Sandin
66
47.6
155
49.9
-2.3
Chychrun
63
64.0
118
54.3
+9.7
Roy
46
36.1
102
54.0
-18.0
McIlrath
32
29.0
40
42.5
-13.5
There’s always context elided in a comparison like this, though it’s not as if the third line is given tough assignments; Lapierre gets a bigger share of his zone starts in the offensive zone than anyone but Protas and Strome.
Taken as a whole, the third line is a catastrophe – especially when paired with defense-first defenders like Roy and Fehervary. If the Chychrun numbers jump out at you, consider that Carbery has started Hendrix and Chychrun together in the defensive zone just four times – the other 87 percent of non-neutral starts have come in the offensive zone.
Though alike in their suffering, there are two different players with very different statuses. Vrana, 28, earned a surprise contract after a tryout agreement following a disappointing stint in St. Louis and time in the player assistance program. Lapierre, 22, had a promising outing in his rookie season but has not been able to match that level in 2024-25. The primary problem with both is their play without the puck, though Lapierre has also had trouble with both passing and individual goal production. But it’s the defense that has led to criticism and reduced ice time from Spencer Carbery.
“[Lapierre] needed a breather and to come out of the lineup,” Carbery said just this week, before the Stars game. “Take a step back, and give [Vrana] an opportunity to come in the lineup.”
(Lapierre played that night anyway, as Andrew Mangiapane got sick.)
Vrana should have had his cushiest game of the year one night later – in the lineup without Lapierre and against a rebuilding Chicago team. It didn’t turn out that way — the Caps were outshot 9 to 2 during his shifts.
Last month, Carbery described a lack of balance in Vrana’s performances:
There’s the give and take. He’s got the speed, the offensive ability, the shot, and then he has to really work on his game without the puck, and that’s always been him his whole career. So, when you’re creating enough to offset the without-the-puck play, we’re in a good spot. You put up with some misses defensively, but when the ledger starts to move [the wrong way], that’s when we have to get it back to even.
That’s where I feel like we’re at. There’s just a few plays a game defensively where we’re getting exposed, and it’s costing us in certain situations. And if you’re not creating and scoring and creating a ton of opportunities even in his limited ice, then the ledger becomes unsustainable from a coaching standpoint.
(I’ll add that this is the most articulate summary of Vrana’s playstyle I’ve ever heard from a non-media person.)
Everyone understands that these two players are struggling, and the coach’s primary job at this point is to the limit the damage, which means low ice time and health scratches. It doesn’t mean they’ve given up …yet.
“If [Lapierre] 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 in November. “[He] can play in this league all day long. He’s shown it. […] 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.
“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.”
I’m glad Carbery said future there, as the present isn’t great. Lapierre, earning $860k on an entry-level contract, could hypothetically be re-assigned to AHL Hershey. Vrana, earning $775k on a one-year prove-it deal, could stay out of the lineup for long stretches without hindering the team. But those changes are subtractive; the team needs an affirmative fix to firm up their third line, their only major weakness up front.
Every other move this team has made over the last six months has been a triumph. I’m eager to see what they do next, and I’m confident they agree a change is needed.
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