Washington Capitals: Which Young Center Should Stay On The Third Line

The Washington Capitals are a pretty fortunate team when it comes to center depth. As things currently stand the Caps are missing two of their top four centers. Nicklas Backstrom is out for a while longer with a hip injury, Nic Dowd is now listed as day-to-day with an injury that forced him to miss the teams latest game against the Ottawa Senators.

If most teams lost two centers at the same time it might be panic time for them. Look at a contending team like the Las Vegas Golden Knights (yes, Las Vegas, not just Vegas). When you look at that teams center depth they can’t afford to lose one guy. Yet the Capitals have lost two and don’t look too likely to miss a beat.

This is in large part to two young guys, Connor McMichael and Hendrix Lapierre, coming in and being able to play and contribute while a key player or two is forced to miss time. Considering their age and their lack of professional hockey experience, the ability to contribute to an NHL team is pretty impressive.

But does one of those guys have the inside track? Coming into the season McMichael had the clear advantage. He had already played in the NHL, albeit just one game, and he spent last season in the American Hockey League. Combined, he had 34 games of professional hockey under his belt.

Hendrix Lapierre came seemingly out of nowhere and won the third line center job out of camp. The 19-year-old had never played pro hockey before, yet he still apparently out performed McMichael in camp and preseason to get the first look at the third line center position.

Now, being six games into the season, and with Backstrom being out for a while longer, we can ask who deserves to be the third line center?

Lapierre started the season on the team, so we’ll start by looking at how that line performed with him at center.

The third line of Sheary-Lapierre-Oshie had a stat line that looked like this.

12:24 TOI, 20% Corsi%, 2 shots for, 8 against, 1 goal for, 0 against, 25% scoring chance percentage, 0% high danger attempts percentage and 16.78% expected goals for percentage.

To put that lightly, those aren’t very good numbers. The only number that is good is the goal for with 0 against. At the end of the day, goals are the only thing that matters in hockey. This line has a goal and has not conceded any. But if this trio didn’t or doesn’t bring up those underlying numbers, maybe that won’t be the case for very long.

Now lets take a look at that same line when McMichael was at center.

29:40 TOI, 71.70 Corsi%, 23 shots for, 6 against, 0 goals for or against, 70.37% scoring chance percentage, 90.91% high danger attempts percentage and 85.51% expected goals for percentage.

So there is the conflict.

When McMichael centers the line the Capitals dominate possession and in chances. However, to this point, while 5v5, they have not been able to tickle any twine. When it’s Lapierre at center, they have scored, but according to the numbers, they are playing way to much on the wrong side of the ice and giving up more chances than they are getting. A lot more chances.

Right now the lines are a little juggled. The current third line has Lapierre centering Sheary on the left and Sprong on the right. McMichael has Mantha on his left and Oshie on his right on the second line.

Last game, Oshie scored a hat trick with McMichael as his center, McMichael getting two assists, his first two NHL points. In a game where the Capitals scored 8 goals, Lapierre failed to register a point.

Whether the lines go “back to normal” once Dowd returns or not, considering everything we’ve seen, who do you think should center the Capitals third line? McMichael or Lapierre?