Trevor van Riemsdyk doesn’t grab headlines, but he’s quietly put together a great career. We just gotta get him some goals.
By the Numbers
1
Goals
20
Assists
82
Games played
18
Minutes per game
On-ice percentages
50%
Shot attempts
50%
Expected goals
58%
Actual goals
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 blobs 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 conducted an open survey with readers, 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.
Slavoj Žižek on van Riemsdyk
The real reason people hate defensemen isn’t boredom. The real reason is they remind us of our own exploitation – it sniff ruins the fantasy of hockey!
Peter’s Take
I’m not going to try one last time to add another name to the “who’s the best defender on the Caps?” debate, but let me just say that Trevor van Riemsdyk is great. He’s a player you never have to worry about. He’s a bottom-pairing guy – getting the fewest shifts during five-on-five and somehow also far less PK time than John Carlson – but I refuse to be tricked into thinking TVR isn’t excellent.
By Evolving Hockey’s count, van Riemsdyk provided eight goals above replacement, which is great, but still down from his prior two seasons in DC, both twelves. His plus-15 on-ice goal differential was the highest among Caps defenders. His pairing with Rasmus Sandin seemed like true synergetic chemistry, and going by expected goals they were second best behind Fehervary and Carlson.
If you sum up the GAR for every NHL defender over all of the last three seasons, TVR ranks 23rd out of 242 – below Hampus Lindholm, above Zach Werenski.
It’s not all great. TVR played so much defense that it was sort of unavoidable that he’d have a poor penalty differential, but I’d bet he’d wish for better than committing eight more penalties than he drew – second worst among Caps players (Chychrun was worst, obviously). That’s something he can build on, but if he’s drawing penalties, that means he’s carrying the puck, and if he’s carrying the puck, that means he hasn’t done his job yet. His job is to get the puck back and get it back into neutral. With his long reach, he’s built for it.
His job is not to score. He scored once this season. I kinda think it was an accident.
Next season will be the last, at age 33, on his current $3 million contract. That deal has been bountiful for Washington, limited only by the opportunities TVR missed because the top-end talent on the Caps blue line is so high. I think this will be our last go-round with him. I’d tell you to appreciate him while you can, but the nature of the player is not to notice him at all. That’s great. Unless you’re his agent.
TVR on RMNB
TVR is the winner of the 2025 Jack Hillen Memorial Trophy, awarded to the guy with the fewest RMNB stories about him.
- The miracle putt that made his teammates go wild.
- Eding the longest active goal drought with his first goal in more than two years.
- Carbery on TVR in the Canandiens series: “f***ing phenomenal.”
That’s it. Those are all of the stories. He needs to get face tattoos and spit on people next season or something.
Your Turn
Is this the last season of TVR in DC? And why doesn’t he get more PK time so that Carlson can have less ice time in general?
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