Matt Roy

Last Season

Two goals and 17 assists in 79 games — 19 points, plus-18, at 20:37 a night with twelve penalty minutes.

His 517th career game.

The Finesse Game

A hundred and forty-three unblocked attempts from a median of 56 feet, 73 per cent from beyond forty, two goals. Twenty-nine goals in 517 career games.

Seventeen assists in 79 games is thin and nobody has ever asked him for more. A hundred and forty-nine points in eight seasons is the honest rate.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 220, and he defends by being early rather than by finishing checks — the gap control and the stick are the best parts of the game.

Twelve penalty minutes across 79 games at twenty-one minutes a night is among the lowest rates of any defenceman in this edition and it is a genuine skill.

The Intangibles

Forty-seven point six per cent of the expected goals, 33rd percentile, and 49.6 per cent of the shot attempts, 53rd, across 1,389 minutes, with the chances 54.9 to 60.5 against.

The goals came out 51-42 in his favour on chances that were five and a half the wrong way. That is Thompson again, and it is the third page in this section where the same sentence applies.

Four points in his last ten. He is 31, a hundred and ninety-fourth overall pick, and one of the quietly reliable defensive defencemen in the league.