From Beauvillier to Wilson, we’re taking a look at and grading the 2024-25 season for every player who laced ‘em up for the Washington Capitals for a significant number of games during the campaign, with an eye towards 2025-24. Next up, Pierre-Luc Dubois.
The Bio:
#80 | Center | Shoots: Left
Height: 6’4″ | Weight: 220 | Born: June 24, 1998
Birthplace: Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, QC | Acquired: Traded from LA for Darcy Kuemper on June 19, 2024
Cap Hit: $8,500,000 | Signed Through: 2030-31 | Expiry Status: Unrestricted Free Agent
The Scouting Report (via EP)
The Stats:
The Charts:
The Key Stat: PuckIQ tracks a stat called “Dangerous Fenwick For/Against” or DFF%, which is essentially dangerous shots for and against, and shows how players perform against various competition, one of which is “elite”. If you look at all the centers that have played at least 400 minutes against elite competition, Dubois 53.9DFF% was ranked fifth in the league; hange it to DFF%RC, which is “Dangerous Fenwick ratio relative to teammates”, Dubois ranked second in the league. Basically, Dubois played a lot against elite competition (13th most time among centers), and came out on top, finishing with the fourth-best goals-for percentage against elite opposition, outscoring them 16-9. In other words, last season Dubois was one of the best two-way centers in the game.
The Good: There was a lot of good with Dubois this season. He put up a career-high in points and assists, all while playing on a new team and in very tough minutes, as mentioned above. There was a lot of concern, mainly from outsiders, that Dubois and his contract were going to be big burdens on the Caps for years to come, but he came in and did a hell of a job in the top six for the Caps. Dylan Strome gets a lot of attention, and rightfully so, but Dubois did a lot of the defensive carrying so Strome’s line could go off offensively.
The Bad: While Dubois provided the team with plenty of offense in the regular season – and did so against tough competition – that offense seemed to dry up (as it did with a lot of his teammates) in the playoffs, with the big center putting up just three points in 10 playoff games and was fairly invisible at times.
He also simply took too many penalties this past season. Over the last four seasons he’s averaging 82 penalty minutes a season, or a minute per game spent in the box. That’s a lot of time off the ice for one of the team’s most valuable players on it, and what’s frustrating is that a lot of them are retaliatory penalties. If someone upsets him by slashing him too hard, or pushes him after the whistle, or anything else that pisses him off, he tends to take penalty that the ref sees. He needs to learn how to keep himself in check, because – like his frequent linemate Tom Wilson – he’s way more useful to the team when he’s not in the penalty box.
The Video:
The Discussion: Did Dubois surprise you this past season with his play? Do you think he has another level to get to or will he regress to previous seasons? Will he learn to stop taking so many penalties?
The Vote: Rate Pierre-Luc Dubois below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season – so if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.
