Going by how they played vs Devils, I'd say Lapierre.
I know McMichael got on the score sheet, but Lap looked more noticeable shift-to-shift.

I argee

“Capitals so far in this game with Connor McMichael on the ice five-on-five: +12 shot attempts, +8 scoring chances, +7 high danger chances.”

I’ll be really hard for this kid to not be in the NHL full time

Lapierre deserves 9 games while backstrom is recovering. I wanna see some Lapierre action. McMichael is absolutely a huge part of the future, but I think he should start in the AHL and come up halfway through the season when guys go down with injuries.

Idk CMM looked amazing tonight. Idk how he’s doesn’t get a full time spot this year.

He did look pretty good tonight. I saw him battling in front of the net and he was winning a lot of faceoffs. But he did have a -2. I would like to say Kempny looked great

Don’t put too much stock into plus minus. Use xgf% cf% ff%. They’ll give you a more accurate idea of what happened. I normally go on naturalstatrick

Ok Kempny had a great game today

Yeah. Credit where it’s due. Kempny looked good.

I would want McMichael out of the two, forcing up your 19 year old 1st round pick who has injury issues seems like a recipe for disaster, and McMichael looked very good yesterday. Also credit to Kempny, he looks like he's getting reacclimated to the NHL after his absence.

I would think since competition is close, CMM takes the spot since Lapierre is ELC-slide candidate. Plus I don't know the exact numbers, but CMM's faceoffs have been pretty solid (as well as Lap not including the first game). Kemps looked good, and this is probably an unpopular opinion since people love to hate on him, but Kuzy has been flying around this preseason. He has been active in both zones and has controlled the puck pretty nicely. Good sign

92 has even been playing on the penalty kill. Figuring that Lavy is going to rely on Kuznetsov at both ends of the ice this season instead of very heavy offensive zone starts. I also would not be surprised in the slightest if Kuznetsov ends up as a point-per-game guy this season.

I fully expect them both to get games at this point. They'll probably get an even split of the games until Backstrom comes back, unless one of them really solidifies themselves. My bigger question is if either of those guys will play well enough to secure a full time roster spot