From Alexeyev to Wilson, we’re taking a look at and grading the 2023-24 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 2024-25. Next up, Martin Fehervary.
The Bio:
#42 | Defense | Shoots: Left
Height: 6’2” | Weight: 199 | Born: October 6, 1999
Birthplace: Bratislava, Slovakia | Acquired: Drafted in 2018, 2nd round (46th overall)
Cap Hit: $2,675,000 | Signed Through: 2026-27 | Expiry Status: Restricted Free Agent
The Scouting Report (via CapFriendly):
Report: November 2023 | Rating: 83 | Projection: Second Pair
- A reliable ‘2-way D’ who logs the bulk of his minutes against top six forwards and on the primary PK.
- Solid read/react in his zone. Jumps to pressure pucks on the perimeter. Leans on opponents.
- Competes to keep the puck out of his net.
- Outlets are well thought out and generally on time.
- Glue guy. Provides depth scoring in his role. Keeps the play in front of him.
The Stats:
The Charts:
The Key Stat: Fehervary led all defensemen (by a significant margin) with 188 hits, and trailed only Tom Wilson (228) and Beck Malenstyn (241) among all Caps’ skaters in that department.
The Good: One of the more underrated elements of Fehervary’s game is his physicality, his ability to use the body to separate players from pucks – and perhaps free up pucks for his defensive partner to join the attack. To that end, Fehervary excelled this season, as noted above. In fact, no one has been credited with more hits than Fehervary over the last three seasons, with 656… almost 100 more than the next guy on the list. Pretty impressive, considering some of the guys on that list.
He also stepped up his playmaking game a little this season, setting a new career high in assists with 13 and finishing the season with the third-most points among Caps’ blueliners (not the highest bar to clear, considering the offense from the defense this season, but we’ll take it). That little uptick in scoring led to his first big scoring milestone, as Fehervary picked up his 50th career point this season in that huge win over Detroit in early April.
Once the postseason rolled around, there weren’t many good things to talk about when it came to the Caps – but Fehervary was one of them, as he led the team (ponder that for a sec) in scoring with two goals (his first in the playoffs) and three points in the team’s four-game ousting to the Rangers. That’s one goal shy of his entire regular-season output.
The Bad: We talked earlier this week about what John Carlson did this season, but the downside of him having to carry so much of the defensive weight is that it puts pressure on his partner – which was, more often than not, Fehervary – to also have to carry additional weight. That’s a lot to ask of a kid in just his third full season, and while Fehervary wasn’t horrible in the role, he did struggle at times, as well, and wherever the duo put up decent numbers, you can see Carlson doing better without Fehervary than he did with him. As much potential as Fehervary could have going forward, it’s clear that, this season at least, the Caps really had no better options to pair with their veteran blueliner.
Even aside from his performance with Carlson, it seems like Fehervary took a step back individually this season. Setting a career-high in assists is great, but not when other parts of your offense struggle (to say nothing of your defense) – and Fehervary went from putting up eight goals in his first full season, to six last year, to just three this year. Some of that was probably due to a simple affliction that he shared with most of his teammates, which was the inability to get the puck on net in any consistent fashion. He put up just 61 shots this season – less than one per game – after topping 90 in each of his last two years. Fehervary’s primary role isn’t necessarily to score, especially when trying to back up someone like Carlson and give him freedom to roam, but he has a decent shot and some good hands and neither was being used enough this season.
He’s also had some issues staying healthy (but then, who on the Caps’ blueline outside of Carlson didn’t get injured for long stretches this season?), and has yet to play a full 82-game slate, not even topping 70 the last two years.
The Video: Scoring against the Penguins is always good, but this shift was an all-around beauty for the kid.
The Discussion: Given the team’s current (and limited) blueline roster, has Fehervary been the best option to skate alongside Carlson? So far, Fehervary has earned next to no power-play time… should the team consider him as an option going forward? What do you see as being Fehervary’s ceiling as a blueliner? And finally, what would it take for you to give Fehervary a 10 next season?
The Vote: Rate Martin Fehervary 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.