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, Trevor van Riemsdyk.
The Bio:
#57 | Defense | Shoots: Right
Height: 6’2” | Weight: 192 | Born: July 24, 1991
Birthplace: Middletown, New Jersey | Acquired: Signed as a free agent, October 10, 2020
Cap Hit: $3,000,000 | Signed Through: 2025-26 | Expiry Status: Unrestricted Free Agent
The Scouting Report (via CapFriendly):
Report: November 2023 | Rating: 77 | Projection: Second Pair
- Mostly ‘stay at home’ defenceman who rolls over the boards at ES and the PK.
- Matches up against top three lines.
- Not physical. Blocks shots. Average plus skater. Out of the blocks he takes a bit of time to get up to speed. Once up to speed he is the kind of player that will look to distribute / or gain the red line and dump the puck deep.
- Keeps things simple.
- Reliable. No frills. Right shot. Good size. Active stick on the PK. If he brings offense its a bonus.
The Stats:
The Charts:
The Key Stat: Trevor van Riemsdyk was paired with 11 different defense partners this season, the most frequent being Rasmus Sandin, with 362:04 TOI at five-on-five this season. (On the flip side, Sandin got more ice time with Jensen, 391:20, and Carlson, 398:36, than with #57.)
The Good: TvR did a pretty decent job of… well, doing his job, which essentially is to keep the opponent from scoring. Despite shouldering a somewhat heavy workload, as one of the veterans among a bevy of young defensemen, van Riemsdyk probably had one of his best defensive seasons to date. He was the only Caps’ defenseman to have an xGF% above 50% at five on five (min 100 minutes played), and among Caps’ blueliners who skated at least 500 minutes this season, van Riemsdyk had the second-best expected goals-against/60 rate:
While not an offensive dynamo, he still put up 14 assists – just two shy of the career-best mark he put up the last two seasons, despite the fact that the team’s overall offense was way down. One of those assists was the 100th of his career, and one game after hitting that milestone, he hit the 600-game mark in the team’s win over brother James’s Boston Bruins.
The Bad: Honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot of “bad” with TvR. He is very much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of defenseman, in that there’s nothing super-flashy about him, and he has occasional struggles in the defensive zone, but not enough to really knock him down – and he was probably one of the team’s more consistent blueliners in a season where the defense, and the team, were anything but.
As noted above, TvR isn’t exactly here for his offense, so the fact that he didn’t have any goals on the season isn’t that big of a deal, but you’d like to see at least one there, considering he came off a career year last season where he potted seven (although the lack of goals was very on-brand with the team’s anemic offense from the defense, and the offense overall, in 2023-24).
Much like most of his teammates, van Riemsdyk’s playoff performance was nothing noteworthy… until it was. In fact, the biggest negative of his postseason was that it was cut short. TvR played roughly 3:30 in Game 3 before being knocked out of the game – and the series – by a guy whose bizarre, sudden mythology far outweighs his talent, Matt Rempe. Two minutes for Rempe, the rest of Game 3 and all of Game 4 for van Riemsdyk. Feels fair.
The Video: Sure, this goal was Alex Ovechkin’s 850th career goal… but it was van Riemsdyk’s 100th career assist, and darn it, that’s almost as impressive in our books.
The Discussion: TvR signed a new three-year deal at the end of last season; how do you think he’s performed relative to that new contract? With the defense likely to remain the same as this season – barring a trade or other major move in the preseason – who do you see him being paired up with the most in 2024-25? And finally, what would it take for you to give van Riemsdyk a 10 next season?
The Vote: Rate Trevor van Riemsdyk 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.