From Beauvillier to Wilson, we’re taking a look at and grading the 2024-25 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 2025-24. Next up, Matt Roy.
The Bio:
#3 | Defense | Shoots: Right
Height: 6’2” | Weight: 212 | Born: March 1, 1995
Birthplace: Detroit, MI | Acquired: Signed as a free agent on July 1, 2024
Cap Hit: $5,750,000 | Signed Through: 2029-30 | Expiry Status: Unrestricted Free Agent
The Scouting Report (via EP)
The Stats:
The Charts:
The Key Stat: Roy finished the season with the lowest CF% Rel among the six regular Caps’ blueliners, with a -3.33%.
The Good: While Roy wasn’t brought in for his offensive prowess, he still had a pretty good offensive season overall by his standards. His .35 points per game rate was the best of his career, and he finished just one point shy of his previous season total (and two fewer than the 2022-23 campaign) despite missing 13 games with injury. He also had his best assists per 60 rate of his career, with 1.01; he’d never cracked .70 prior to this season.
For Roy, however, it’s more about the whole package. He’s a quietly steady, consistent blueliner who isn’t going to blow you away with his scoring or make a big, flashy play but he gets the job done and was a very good partner for Martin Fehervary all season. Only Jakob Chychrun and Trevor van Riemsdyk spent more time together at evens than Fehervary and Roy, and while their underlying defensive numbers weren’t the prettiest, they did crack 50% in CF% and generated the second-most shot attempts at even strength.
The Bad: The biggest negative to Roy’s season was losing him to an injury in the season opener, which caused him to miss the next ten games just as he was getting settled in. Once he returned, and despite playing relatively sheltered minutes – only Chychrun had fewer defensive zone starts this season – Roy struggled to keep the puck out of his own zone, with the second-worst GF%Rel at evens…behind only Fehervary, who was mostly on the ice with Roy. It wasn’t much better in the playoffs, (although he did fare slightly better than the newly cobbled-together duo of Chychrun and Carlson, so…silver lining?).
The Video: Roy gets on the board with his first as a Cap:
The Discussion: Roy is one of those blueliners who is hard to review based solely on the available statistics – but given the stats we do have, and the eye test, how do you think Roy’s first season in DC went overall? Who do you think fits best as Roy’s defensive partner next season?
The Vote: Rate Matt Roy 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.