This article will be another in my series of player profiles, where I review the season of every player on the Los Angeles Kings. This piece will focus on Matt Roy.
Roy had a great first full NHL season with the Kings and became a very reliable member of the blue line. He had four goals and 18 points in 70 games along with a plus-16 rating that led all skaters on the team by a huge margin.
He was in a very reduced role to start the year but ended up getting significantly more ice time by year’s end, when he was often playing more than 20 minutes per game. His advanced stats are excellent as well and this season, he managed both the highest goals for percentage and expected goals for percentage of any player on the Kings (according to NaturalStatTrick.com). His corsi for percentage was also the highest of any Kings defenseman and the second-highest of any skater on the team.
That said, he was in a bit of a sheltered role. He had the second-most offensive zone starts of any player on the team (more than 15 games played) and got more favourable matchups, based on Drew Doughty taking on the toughest competition.
As I've said before, I think the next step is to play Roy in a larger role and see how he performs. Given that he’s only played a single full season in the league, the Kings still don’t really know what they have in him, plus Doughty isn’t getting any younger and it would be be good to start taking a bit of the pressure off of him. Los Angeles will still be in the process of rebuilding next season, so it makes sense to test Roy a bit more while the stakes aren’t overly high.
Regardless, this was a very strong first season for Roy. Going forward, it now becomes a matter of figuring out just how high his ceiling is and where he can fit long-term with the Kings.
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Here’s today’s poll questions (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
Do you think Matt Roy would be capable of taking on a larger role with the Kings next season?
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