Marty Fehervary carries the defensive burden while his D partner goes a-wandering.
By the Numbers
| Summary | |
|---|---|
| 3 | goals |
| 13 | assists |
| 66 | games played |
| 19.6 | average ice time |
| On-ice percentages | |
| 47.3 | 5-on-5 shot-attempt percentage |
| 48.8 | 5-on-5 expected goal percentage |
| 42.9 | 5-on-5 actual goal percentage |
Isolated Impact by HockeyViz
About this visualization: This image by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows how the player has impacted play when on the ice. At the top of the image is the team’s offense (even strength at left, power play at right) and at bottom is the team’s 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’s net at top, and blue/purple bobs near their own team’s 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’s impact.
Player Card by All Three Zones
About this player card: This image from Corey Sznajder of All Three Zones shows how the player compares to league averages in different microstats in the defensive, neutral, and offensive zones. Blue bars mean the player has a higher rate in that statistic compared to league average, and orange means a lower rate. The numbers are Z-scores, also known as standard deviations, indicating how far the number is from league average, where more than two standard deviations means the player is on the extreme edge of the league.
Player Card by Evolving Hockey
About this player card: This card from Josh and Luke of Evolving Hockey compares the player to league averages based on their impact on on-ice statistics. GAR means “goals above replacement,” where “replacement” 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’s percentile ranks overall and then for offense and defense alone.
Player Overview by NHL Edge
About this visualization: The NHL’s advanced statistics program, Edge, tracks player and puck movement. At left are the player’s numbers in various statistics along with the average number for that same stat among players of the same position and the player’s percentile rank in it. At right is a radar chart for various statistics, where the bigger the shape the better the player performs in those measures.
Fan Happiness Survey
About this visualization: At three times during the season, RMNB shared an open survey with fans, asking the following question for each player: “On a scale from 1 to 5, how HAPPY are you to have this player on the team?” The numbers above show the average score for the player in each survey period.
Peter’s Take
It’s gotta be a tough job to be John Carlson’s on-ice partner. Carlson is a major puck-carrier, an offense contributor, and other things we discussed two days ago. Among those other things comes a lot of opponent offense, meaning Marty’s job as the more defensively inclined member of the pairing is busy. I don’t know if I could say the pairing was successful (goals were 32-28 against the Caps), but I do think it was the optimal pairing available given the roster.
The top-left is the good part of the diagram above, and “together” (meaning Carlson and Fehervary are both on the ice) is top-left-iest. When Carlson is with another partner, opponents get too many chances (far right). When Fehervary is with another partner, offense disappears (bottom right). The only time the Caps generated more expected goals was when these two crazy kids got together.
Again, I think there’s a massive difference between optimal and best available. This is the latter. We’re three full seasons into Fehervary’s career, and I still feel like I don’t have a good grasp on who the players is aside from “Carlson’s partner.” Fehervary skated with Carlson for more than 60 percent of his season and almost half of his career so far. He’s spent that time defending a mostly empty blue line and chasing pucks — two things he does well. Given that skillset I kind of blithely assume he’s the right guy for Carlson, but I don’t know how true that is. Maybe there’s another partner who could help Carlson more in transition, freeing up Fehervary for more purely defensive workloads that would also make space for more young players to develop.
One last thing. In the playoffs, which were very short, Marty was Washington’s best defender and maybe their best player (two goals, one assist, even goal differential). There’s a “damning by faint praise” facet to that observation, but it’s still an accomplishment and a feather in the cap of a solid season for a player whose importance keeps growing.
Player Summary by ChatGPT
There’s nothing that gets hockey fans excited like a new player stepping up and becoming the player to watch. Such is the tale of Martin Fëhèrvary, the Bratislava-born blue-liner from Bratislava. Be that as it may, in his fourth campaign with the Washington Capitals (NHL), Fēhěrvary has blossomed into the kind of player you can be proud of. Have no doubt: the future is bright for Martin Fėhęrvary.
Marty Party on RMNB
- Fehervary clocked in as one of the fastest players in the league.
- On playing under Spencer Carbery again: “I really like this system, what we play. I had him in Hershey. And I always liked it. And I never had any issues. So I think it should be really good fit for us.”
- As is tradition, Fehervary got injured in November. He returned after Thanksgiving but got hurt again in late December.
- Fehervary “will be out for the foreseeable future,” Carbery said on December 29. He played one game later. I feel like I could foresee one game.
- Fehervary got hurt for the third time in February. He was seen on crutches and was considered week-to-week. That time he missed about a month, returning on March 13.
- After elimination, Fehervary reported to play for the Slovakian team at the World Championship.
Your Turn
Is Marty Fehervary the right partner for John Carlson? Is John Carlson the right partner for Marty Fehervary?
