Hendrix Lapierre News: Losing playing time

Lapierre was scratched for the second game in a row when he sat out Thursday's 6-3 win over the Canadiens.

Lapierre won a middle-six job out of training camp, but he went minus-5 with no points over his first seven games of the season. He took four PIM in Saturday's 3-0 loss to the Lightning and has since been scratched for two contests in a row, with Michael Sgarbossa taking his place in the lineup. Lapierre should get another look eventually, but he'll need to make some sort of positive impact when he draws back in to avoid being rotated out of the lineup on a regular basis. He had 22 points in 51 regular-season outings in 2023-24, so this slow start is a bit disappointing.