Feher Game: The Ups and Downs of Being a Rookie Blueliner

Martin Fehervary is doing something no Cap has done since his defense partner, John Carlson, did it more than a decade ago: average more than 19 minutes of ice time per night as a rookie. And, like Carlson in 2010-11, the 2018 second-round pick is doing it as a top-pair defenseman, playing in all five-on-five situations (only Justin Schultz averages more time with the Caps trailing, only Dmitry Orlov sees more ice in tied games, and only the duo of Orlov and Nick Jensen plays more with a lead), in all three zones, against top competition and alongside the Caps’ best skaters, all the while staying comfortably above water in both expected and actual goals:

From those xGF and xGA rates, you can see that the Fehervary-Carlson duo does things a little differently than the other pairs - pushing offense at the expense of defense - but the expected goals-for percentage results are similar, and the actual goals-for results even better.