2022 Montreal Canadiens Top 25 Under 25: #7 Joshua Roy

When the Montreal Canadiens made Joshua Roy their fifth-round pick in 2021, there wasn’t too much fanfare. Rarely is there hype about late picks, but this pick might have had more potential than you typically see this late in the draft.

Roy, a former first overall pick in the QMJHL draft, managed exactly one point per game in his draft year, which was split between the Saint John Sea Dogs and Sherbrooke Phoenix. The hope was that he had something more to offer than he had already shown. He delivered in spades during his draft-plus-one season.

He exploded in 66 games with Sherbrooke in 2021-22 for 119 points, leading his team and taking home the Jean Beliveau Trophy as the top scorer in the QMJHL. With 23 points in 11 playoff games, he got even better as the stakes got higher and really put himself on the map as a legitimate NHL prospect.

It also put him on the map for the Canada junior national team. He was a substitute for Team Canada in the tournament’s ill-fated winter run, but his season at Sherbrooke made him undeniable for the August edition. There he accumulated eight points in seven games and played crucial minutes for the team that won the gold medal.

There might not have been much hype when he was drafted, but his exponential improvement since then has made him one of the hottest names in a deep pool of potential Montreal clients. If he continues to improve at his current pace, he will likely go down as the biggest steal of the 2021 NHL Draft.

Choose

Overall, with a high rating of five and a low rating of 12, our panel is fairly confident about Roy as a potential candidate. Especially in such a strong prospect pool, that he’s climbing our list so quickly is a testament to how much he’s improved since his draft.

I was voted so high and I knew I would try to put him in my top 5 after watching most of his games this season. His offensive abilities put him at a very high ceiling and I have very high confidence in his ability to make the improvements he needs to reach that.

Top 25 Under 25 History

In that deep pool of prospects, a jump from 22 to 7 like that requires making a significant impression, and he clearly succeeded in doing that last year.

Strengthen

He’s about as accomplished a marksman as you’ll find him at the junior level. He has great mechanics, good speed and pinpoint accuracy that allows him to beat goalies from anywhere. His release is so quick and deceptive that he doesn’t need a big boost or a lot of space to use it. If you give him the smallest opening, he can make you pay with a quick flick of the wrists.

When he can’t or doesn’t like his trajectory, he uses the mere threat of his shot to manipulate trajectories for his passing game. His passes are crisp and accurate, and he gets creative with his setups to make it very difficult to predict where he’s going with them. He also has an innate sense of where he wants his teammates to be on the ice, allowing him to pull off some stunning feeds.

He displays excellent hockey IQ and ever-improving positioning, often resulting in the opposing team losing him completely from cover and then attacking downhill again. He makes up for the lack of wow factor speed with smart routes and with his greatly improved off-puck positioning.

His physical and defensive play is also quite underrated. Dave Cameron put us under the microscope during World Juniors and decided to put him in a controlling role against the best of the competition. He was very solid defensively during the season for Sherbrooke, but when he got a chance to show his 200-foot game on the big stage, it really drove home how hard he’s worked to improve that aspect of his game .

weaknesses

It is almost universally accepted that skating is the most important thing he needs to improve in order to reach his potential. I disagree with comments about him being slow because that’s really an oversimplification of what’s holding him back.

As my former colleague David St-Louis puts it, his posture is holding him back. He is hunched over and has no ankle flexion, meaning he takes more time and effort to reach and maintain his top speed. It also limits his ability to make quick cuts and be elusive, forcing him to use his racquet handling and outplay his teammates to create space.

As can be predicted and as evidenced by Mitch Brown’s player tracking, the lack of acceleration has a major impact on his transition play. He can’t get up to speed fast enough, so he much prefers to pass to his teammates or throw the puck in/out of the zone. His positioning and physicality give him an edge when it comes to winning back those pucks, but the ability to exit and enter possession zones more regularly would be crucial to realizing his potential.

The good news is that he has an incredible work ethic. His condition is leaps and bounds ahead of where he started his draft year, and his skating has also taken a step up. There’s still work to be done, but as much as he’s improved his game, you have to like his chances to make the necessary adjustments.

projection

If he can keep improving his skating, he’ll have a winger with the top six goals. The threat of his shot, coupled with his ability to bluff and manipulate passing lanes to set up teammates, could make him a great weapon for one of Montreal’s top two trios. His versatility on the power play could make him a staple of the top power play unit regardless of who he’s playing five-on-five with.

If he doesn’t show further improvement in skating, the transition play issues mentioned above will be a problem at the professional level. This would likely limit him to a controlling role even in the AHL, severely limit his offensive performance, and make it difficult for him to hit his cap.

I have about as much confidence in him as I have ever had in a player to make the necessary adjustments. The Canadians are in no rush to bring him into their ranks so the most he should see is the nine-game trial with the club before being sent back to Sherbrooke, where he is expected to be named captain. He was also scheduled to return for a major role with Team Canada at World Juniors 2023 in December, giving us a very solid sample against which to gauge his progress.

His work ethic makes him someone the Canadians development team should very easily work with. If he continues to improve this year and brings that work ethic to camp with Adam Nicholas, I boldly predict we could see him vying for a roster spot with the Habs as early as 2023-24.

Of course, a season in Laval would also be conceivable, but if Joshua Roy has shown one thing since his draft year, it’s that you shouldn’t oversleep him.

Matt Drake joins Anton “the Fugitive” Rasegård and Patrik Bexell in becoming the expert as they discuss Joshua Roy: