Nicolas Roy, the right shot centre the Maple Leafs needed

He’s not Mitch Marner but he’s not nothing either. In the process of trading the rights to Mitch Marner, the Maple Leafs have picked up Nicolas Roy in the process and have taken another step towards improving their centre depth in a manner that fits Brad Treliving’s vision for the Maple Leafs.

It should go without saying that picking up any player at all is a win for the Maple Leafs, who were going to see Marner walk for nothing. And two years of a reasonable cap hit of $3M AAV for Roy is something that can fit nicely into the Leafs bottom six, especially if the intention is to clear out some of their excess bottom six players.

Beyond being the Marner return, here’s what is worth knowing about Nicolas Roy.

First and foremost, Nic Roy is 6-foot-4 all day, every day. That hasn’t translated into a booming physical presence, as his hit count is typically in the 70-80 hit range annually (he had 72 last season), but the size and reach matter. Size up the middle is coveted, as is the fact that Roy has a right shot, and that gives them a slightly different approach in the faceoff circle (although Roy’s faceoff win percentage was 47% last season.)

Roy’s statline:

Last season, Roy tied his career best for goals. He’s also been consistently in the 30-40 point range which makes for some solid third line production and his icetime in Vegas certainly aligns him with taking on third line centre responsibilities.

His utilization in Vegas last season included second powerplay unit responsibilities, and while he wasn’t one of the top icetime penalty killers, he was 10th on the Golden Knights in shorthanded minutes played, which certainly makes him an option for Craig Berube to consider. Roy also had the 9th highest overtime icetime for the Golden Knights and his three empty net assists point to him being a regular when the Knights were protecting the lead late in the game.

Keegan Kolesar was a staple of Roy’s line in Vegas (played 541 minutes together last season) and it will be interesting to see if the Leafs want to emulate a similar situation by playing Roy with someone like Lorentz. Beyond Kolesar, Roy had a rotating collection of linemates with Tanner Pearson being the next most frequent linemate at 267 minutes, and Tomas Hertl at 138. Roy played with numerous players with the exception of Eichel, Stone, and Karlsson.  Situationally, Roy was rarely on against the opposition’s top line and at 5v5 the preference was to keep him against the opposition’s bottom six as much as possible, where he matched up favourably. This is lesson for the Leafs to learn from as they have had a tendency to overextend some of their bottom sixers.

Last season was a tough one PDO (luck) wise for Roy and it showed up in the goals for percentage. His track record over the rest of his time in Vegas has been quite encouraging to finding a desirable differential and perhaps being paired with Kolesar led to gig without Jonathan Marchessault or Ivan Barbashev as support on the line.