Matt Roy is still understated and still underrated, but another season like the one he just put up will change some minds.
By the Numbers
2
Goals
17
Assists
79
Games played
21
Minutes per game
On-ice percentages
50%
Shot attempts
50%
Expected goals
53%
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 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. The player’s 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.
Gratuitous Generative Art by Peter
Peter’s Take
Matt Roy is the shortest name in the NHL. On nights when Roy and Miroshnichenko both dress, the Caps have the shortest and longest name plates in the league.
(This hard-hitting info is why you keep coming back to RMNB. I’ll have a lot more on hockey names this summer. That sentence is a tease or a warning, depending on who you are.)
I have really come around on Matt Roy the player. His pairing with Jakob Chychrun was, by far, Washington’s best all season. Chychrun-Roy is one of those perfect skillset combination. No Caps player was better at digging the puck out of the defensive zone than Roy, and no defender was better at turning that transition into offense than his partner.
Compare that with how Roy performed with his next most-common partner: Martin Fehervary. They played 258 minutes together, with the Caps possessing 40 percent of the shot attempts and getting outscored 12 to 5. I expressed my concern about Fehervary, but part of that concern is a wish that the problem was on his half of the ice and not Roy’s. Because if Roy can perform the same next season – maybe with Chychrun, maybe even with Cole Hutson – he’ll stop being the guy with the short name who is easy to overlook. He’ll be Washington’s best defensive defender.
Roy on RMNB
- He and Chychrun were a dominant pairing early in this season: “They’ve been very, very effective right from jump street.”
- He got a lower-body injury in January. Really bad timing. He went on IR.
- In March, he served as alternate captain a game against the Flyers: “Guys really respect him a lot with how he plays, how he leads by example.”
- And finally he got boarded by Brandon Tanev.
Your Turn
When Roy and Fehervary struggled, was it more on Marty than Matt?
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