In the next review in our series of reviews of the Washington Capitals’ 2022-23 season performance, we’ll take a look at that Trevor van Riemsdykperformance this season. For the purposes of this post (and my writing fingers), I’ll refer to it as TVR from now on.
The Capitals signed TVR to a one-year, $800,000 contract in unrestricted free agency before the start of the 2020-21 season. Since joining the Caps, TVR has now signed two extensions with the team: a two-year contract with a cap of $950,000 that has now expired as the season winds down, and another three-year extension with a cap of $3 million. It will continue through the 2025-26 season.
Due to injuries on the blue line, the Capitals elected to keep TVR rather than trade him while selling veteran players when contracts expired at the trade deadline. TVR’s strong performance since the 2020-21 season has led to the aforementioned contract extensions, and with three 23-year-olds on the left side of defense as currently scheduled, having yet another veteran on the right side would make a lot of sense for the future. .
Statistics used in this post are courtesy The natural stats trickAnd Hockey evolutionAnd hockey referenceAnd Hockey Phys. Contract and transaction information is courtesy of cap friendly. If you would like to learn more about the statistical terminology used in this post, please check out the NHL Analytics Glossary.
Performance while playing five to five
We’ll begin our TVR play evaluation in the case of the most important game: five-on-five. Here’s a breakdown of TVR’s performance in key metrics this season:
Overall, the 2022-23 campaign has been a really strong campaign for TVR. Now, to add a little context to the stats above, here’s a monthly breakdown of TVR’s performance on acquisition and shot generation/suppression metrics:
Similar to Nick Jensen, TVR also had a rocky start to the season in October. He rebounded dramatically in November, increasing his effectiveness in Corsairs by percentage (CF%), Fenwick by percentage (FF%), and Shots by percentage (SF%). It bumped up a bit in performance in December, but managed to stay at the 50% water mark in SF%.
Down the stretch, TVR did fairly well, especially in January and February. March has settled near where it was in December, but a large part of that has been due to other injuries and the sale of assets on contracts that expire at the end of the season. With these players out of the lineup due to injury or a trade, TVR has seen a few different pairing partners. Building that chemistry with new partners can take some time, and the Caps haven’t done well on top of that.
You may notice that April is missing here; TVR missed the final stretch of matches with an upper body injury.
Here are the TVR Goals in Percentage (GF%) and Projected Goals in Percentage (xGF%) by month this season:
Simply put, TVR really excels on both metrics. There are a few contributing factors at play here. First, he’s got the majority of his area starts this season in the offensive zone, which adds more offensive opportunities, and usually means he starts with better offensive players in those scenarios. Secondly, the snapper fired at 10.25%, which lends credence to the fact that he was deployed with more offensive capabilities in the attack area.
Another factor that contributed to his success in GF% and xGF% was scoring chance (SCF%) and high-risk chance (HDCF%) performance:
For the majority of the season, high-risk chances and overall scoring opportunities were dominated by the Caps when TVR was on the ice. When you control a higher percentage of high-risk chances and total scoring chances while on the ice, it pushes your xGF number up. Normally, as your xGF level goes up, actual goals will follow. That’s been an issue the Capitals have dealt with at the team level this season, but TVR hasn’t suffered greatly from that negative differential.
doubles performance
Here’s a look at TVR’s top ice time pairings last season:
I’m not too concerned about the lack of performance in the Nick Jensen pairing, considering they’re both right defensemen, so the odds of them both going forward is somewhat unlikely.
My concern is that TVR’s best mating performance is with players who are no longer with the Capitals (assuming Matt Irwin isn’t retained). A potential bright spot, though, is the pairing with Alexander Alexeyev, who isn’t pictured above. In 73:53 of ice time together, they scored 52.03 CF%, 56.6 FF%, 60 SF%, 62.29 xGF%, and 60 GF% with only 29.17% of their area starting in the offensive zone. This is definitely a possibility for a third pairing next season.
Player value metrics
Let’s take a look at how TVR’s Goals Above Replacement (GAR) and Projected Goals Above Replacement (xGAR) this season compare to other seasons in his career:
In his second season through his fourth season in the NHL, TVR saw his total player value increase exponentially from his rookie season. After that, though, it saw a pretty significant drop from really strong performance to just slightly above average performance. Fortunately, it is this level of play that has made TVR available for a deal to prove it ahead of the 2020-21 season.
After a bit of rocky GAR performance (but a decently strong xGAR offering), TVR player value has skyrocketed. The 2022-23 season is TVR’s highest rated season in the GAR, scoring an overall value of 12.3. That’s not too bad for a third defenseman.
Here’s TVR’s Rate-Adjusted Plus Minus (RAPM), which is used to compare a player’s performance in key metrics with their average sixty minutes of play to the league average:
Did I mention TVR was a third defenseman when the Caps were healthy? Because this performance is exceptional for a player used in this role. The performance of the GF/60 and its xGF/60 while playing a very strong five-to-five on its RAPM chart wasn’t surprising given the metrics we discussed a bit earlier in the post.
Surprisingly, TVR has shown some effectiveness in playing power in a really limited ice time. He probably won’t get much, if any, ice time there going forward assuming Rasmus Sanden and John Carlsson are healthy, but having some depth there is an added value.
isolated effect
Here’s the individual isolated effect of TVR when it’s on the ice (via HockeyViz):
With TVR having a higher rate of offensive zone starts while playing five-on-five, as well as the opportunity to play with more skilled attackers, it’s not surprising to see a 5% effect in xGF/60 for equal-powered offense. Even more surprising, however, is that he has -5% xGA/60 on equal strength defense.
To make a connection again to the RAPM chart we shared above, it just means that TVR is more effective on the ice at creating offensive opportunities than at suppressing them. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if used in the right way, and it’s certainly been deployed properly this season.
2023-24 season predictions
It would be smart for the incoming head coach of the Capitals to use TVR similarly to the way it has been used this season. That could mean a higher offensive zone start rate, with penalty kill charges mixed in.
If the Caps and General Manager Brian MacLellan choose not to bring in another top-four outfielder, we’ll likely see Alexeyev and TVR complete their third pairing. If this season’s performance together in a rather small sample size matches that of a long season’s performance, we could see a very effective third pairing.
In general, the caps could do a lot worse than the TVR on the right side of the third coupling. I also like that MacLellan has struck a balance between veterans and young players on the blue line, which should help speed up the pace of play for the Caps a bit, while also adding experience.
By Justin Trudell