{"id":675842,"date":"2026-05-31T10:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T10:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675842\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T10:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T10:45:20","slug":"ethen-frank-2025-26-season-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/675842\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethen Frank: 2025-26 season review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethen Frank<\/a> is fast, but the Caps will need more than speed in his next two seasons.<\/p>\n

By the Numbers<\/p>\n

On-ice percentages<\/p>\n

Isolated Impact \u00a0by HockeyViz<\/p>\n

\"HockeyViz
About this visualization: \u00a0This image by \u00a0Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com<\/a> \u00a0shows how the player has impacted play when on the ice. At the top of the image is the team\u2019s offense (even strength at left, power play at right) and at bottom is the team\u2019s defense (with penalty kill at bottom right). In each case, red\/orange blobs mean teams shoot for more from that location on the ice, and blue\/purple means less. In general, a good player should have red\/orange blobs near the opponent\u2019s net at top, and blue\/purple blobs near their own team\u2019s net at bottom. The distributions in middle show how the player compares to league average at individual finishing, setting up teammates to score, and taking and drawing penalties. The number at center is Synthetic Goals: a catch-all number for the player\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n

Player Card \u00a0by Evolving Hockey<\/p>\n

\"Evolving
About this player card: \u00a0This card from Josh and Luke of \u00a0Evolving Hockey<\/a> \u00a0compares the player to league averages based on their impact on on-ice statistics. GAR means \u201cgoals above replacement,\u201d where \u201creplacement\u201d means an average player called up from the AHL. xGAR is the same figure but assuming league-average goaltending. The numbers at top are the player\u2019s percentile ranks overall and then for offense and defense alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Player Overview \u00a0by NHL Edge<\/p>\n

\"NHL
About this visualization: \u00a0The NHL\u2019s advanced statistics program, Edge<\/a>, tracks player and puck movement. The player\u2019s shot speed, skating speed, and skating distance are at top along with percentile rank. At bottom left is a shot location map, and at bottom right is zone time per zone.<\/p>\n

Gratuitous Generative Art by Peter<\/p>\n

Using p5.js, the player\u2019s name is a seed that randomizes a bunch of values in an animated canvas with glitchy effects that should be gradual enough not to mess with people with sensory issues. Not AI. Not all that different from Logo, which I learned in like 1992.<\/p>\n

Peter\u2019s Take<\/p>\n

54<\/p>\n

Percentile among forwards<\/p>\n

Age 28 \u00b7 5\u201911\u201d \u00b7 188 lbs \u00b7 \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 \u00b7 \u2652\ufe0f<\/p>\n

2025-26 stats<\/p>\n

Ethen \u201cBig Game\u201d Frank showed up in a big way a few times last season. Half of his total goal output came in three two-goal games \u2013 including a 3-2 overtime loss to Detroit in which he was Washington\u2019s only scorer. Another January win over Montreal was two-thirds his doing.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a prolific shooter \u2013 ranked behind only Beauvillier, Protas (A), and Ovechkin in individual expected goal rate. He\u2019s tenacious and aggressive up close. If anything he was unlucky in his production despite a 13.2 shooting percentage.<\/p>\n

The trouble is the other end of the ice, where Frank played way too often. A lot of that was the result of deployments: his most common on-ice partners were on that famously conservative fourth line. Frank\u2019s alacrity wasn\u2019t well matched to the dig-it-out duties of Dowd and Duhaime. But it also isn\u2019t clear he\u2019ll be successful in other usages. The Caps scored 25 goals to opponents\u2019 15 when Frank is on the ice without Duhaime, but the process behind that goal differential is mixed. The Caps got outshot, but they had better high-danger chances.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what we need to see from Frank under his new two-year contract. He needs to keep crashing the net, but he also needs to improve his puck retrievals and his play on the rush, an area where the Caps really faltered in the back half. Frank could be part of the solution there, but it\u2019s a lot to ask.<\/p>\n

Frenk on RMNB<\/p>\n

Ethen Frank has points in 2 of his last 3 games as he finds potential role on fourth line: \u2018I\u2019m controlling what I can control to make a positive impact\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Brandon Duhaime calls Ethen Frank the best player in the league, \u2018hands down,\u2019 during Spencer Carbery\u2019s post-game victory speech<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ethen Frank suffers lower-body injury against Avalanche after being shoved into goal post by Devon Toews<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Your Turn<\/p>\n

What skills development would you need to see for Frank to become an every-night player?<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcca<\/p>\n

This story would not be possible without<\/p>\n

Please consider joining us in supporting them.<\/p>\n

Read More Player Reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ethen Frank is fast, but the Caps will need more than speed in his next two seasons. By…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-675842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}