At the NHL draft over the weekend, GM Brian MacLellan mentioned that he’d like to shake up the defensive core if possible. Just a couple of days later, he did just that, signing arguably the top defensemen in free agency in 29-year-old right-hander Matt Roy to a six-year, $5.75M deal. Oh, and also traded Nick Jensen and a third-round pick to Ottawa for Jacob Chychrun.
This signing is very reminiscent of when the Caps signed Matt Niskanen in free agency exactly 10 years ago today, one of MacLellan’s first and maybe best free agency signings ever. Niskanen was able to hold down that second pair and eat heavy minutes against the other teams’ top competition and come out on top scoring chance-wise. If the Caps can get something similar from Roy, that would be huge going forward.
In terms of playing style, Roy is a very strong all-around defensemen who can play in almost any situation and he’ll win his ice time. (You probably don’t want Roy out there on your power play, but with John Carlson and Rasmus Sandin, the Caps thankfully have that role covered.)
The best word to describe him is “reliable” – something that the Caps have been missing lately. He doesn’t have any elite offensive skills, but he can still help get the puck into the net with his ability to move play up the ice and insulate the blue line to make sure the skilled guys can do their job. Niskanen was the same way.
Where he shines most is defensively and on the penalty kill. According to PuckIQ, among defensemen that played at least 400 minutes against elite competition last season, Roy came in at 14th with a 54.4DFF%, which is Dangerous Fenwick For % (basically high danger chances). And when you switch those stats to DFF%Relative, he comes in at 8th. The Capitals have desperately been missing that type of shutdown guy; Nick Jensen was doing it for a while, but he just hasn’t been able to stay at that top level consistently.
Let’s talk about Roy’s most frequent defensive partners over the last three seasons:
Both Vladislav and Maatta dropped drastically in DFF% once they left Roy, while Roy barely dropped without them. And with Durzi, Roy was stronger without him, but they are both right-handed so that might have just been a mismatch on ice. Basically, the point is that Roy relied on no one to put up the possession numbers he has, which is really promising.
As to where he’ll fit, Matt will obviously slide in behind Carlson on the second pair. It will be interesting to see who he is paired with. Matt could be a great partner for either Sandin or newly acquired Jakob Chychrun, since Roy can be the calm force back there to help Sandin or Chychrun do what they do best and that’s create offensively. But this also gives head coach Spencer Carbery the option to put together a Fehervary-Roy pairing that could be elite defensively in case they need to try to shut down a specific line.
The icing on the cake is if Carlson goes down to injury, Roy has that ability to step in and take those minutes. He won’t put up the points like Carlson, obviously, but he can hold the line until Carlson’s return. With Roy, there’s a safety net to make sure Caps don’t lose ground if Carlson goes out (something that did not exist when Carlson missed half the season back in 2022-23, as we all remember vividly).
Anyway you cut it, MacLellan said he would shake up the defensive core and he did so big time by adding two strong, top-four defensemen. This will give Carbery more flexibility going forward with a good mix offensive and defensive choices.