Capitals Want To See Lapierre Earn More Trust As Carbery Looks To Increase Role: 'It's My Job To Get Him Out There More'

So far, the season hasn't gone the way that Washington Capitals forward Hendrix Lapierre drew it up.

After a stellar training camp, Lapierre, who was demoted to Hershey last season, earned a place back up in D.C., but since then, has struggled to find consistency while averaging just 9:14 minutes per game.

In Saturday's overtime win over the New Jersey Devils, the 23-year-old skated just 6:54 minutes and had just seven shifts, including 40 seconds total in the third period.

"Is he playing a huge role? Are his minutes really high? No, I'm not going to sit here and tell you (that)," coach Spencer Carbery said on Sunday.

Lapierre has six assists through 35 games this season and has moved up and down the lineup. Of late, he's filled the role of the fourth-line center as the Capitals continue to operate up front without Pierre-Luc Dubois, who has been replaced by Justin Sourdif.

While the production hasn't necessarily been there for Lapierre, who recently ended an 11-game point drought and has gone over 70 games without an NHL goal, the metrics point to promise for the young pivot.

At 5-on-5, Lapierre leads all Washington skaters in Corsi-for percentage (58.13), expected goals-for percentage (58.8) and scoring-chances for percentage (60.61). He's also done a good job of generating high-danger opportunities and getting into the offensive zone. It's the lack of finish, though, that's thwarted Lapierre this season.

Still, Carbery sees plenty of upside and praised Lapierre for what he's been able to do in limited opportunities.

"I’ve liked his game for the most part. I know it doesn’t show up from the production standpoint. When you dive into the underlying numbers, though, they’re pretty good. The lines that he’s played on, we’ve moved him around, he’s been in the lineup every night, so that in itself, to me, there’s a lot of positives that go in," Carbery said. "Underlying numbers are really good, he's playing basically every night, he's been a healthy scratch maybe once."

That said, Carbery knows that having him play limited minutes is far from sustainable, and he plans to assess his role and minutes and adjust things going forward.

"We need to find a way to get him involved in special teams, specifically on the power play. I think just the game flow... it's my job to get him out there a little bit more," Carbery said.

In turn, he expects Lapierre to continue forcing his hand.

“What I’m looking for from him is to just continue to earn that opportunity with quality shifts. Sometimes it doesn’t happen overnight," Carbery said. "It’s not like one game. It take 10 games, it make take 12 games, it may take half a season to just continue to chip away and earn trust to be able to play in all those different situations to maybe get his minutes up.”