Why Is Matt Boldy Being Projected As A Top-5 Player?

Our friends at Evolving-Hockey have released their Goals Above Replacement projections for the upcoming season. GAR (which can be converted into Wins and Standings Points) is their all-in-one metric to measure overall player value, and it passes the sniff test. Last year's top-3 had Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews, and Connor McDavid in their top, and MVP candidates like Nikita Kucherov, Quinn Hughes, and David Pastrnak.

If you look at the names populating the top-10 for their GAR projections next year, you'd go, That sounds about right.

Except in one spot.

GAR Projections, 2024-25:

1. Connor McDavid, EDM: 21.2
2. Auston Matthews, TOR: 18.8
3. Nathan MacKinnon, COL: 17.9
4. MATT BOLDY, MIN: 15.4
5. Jason Robinson, DAL: 14.8
6. Kirill Kaprizov, MIN: 14.7
7. Adam Fox, NYR: 14.5
8. David Pastrnak: 14.0
T-9. Quinn Hughes, Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt: 13.4

Holy smokes.

The Evolving-Hockey Brain Trust has Matt Boldy as the fourth-highest-projected skater in hockey next season. We're talking better than Kirill Kaprizov, though there's not much room between the two star wingers. We're talking about blowing past the top names at his position: Elias Petterson, Matthew Tkachuk, Mikko Rantanen, and Kucherov.

It's a lofty pedestal to put Boldy on, but he arguably had his strongest season yet in an already brilliant career. In 75 games, Boldy potted 29 goals and 69 points, landing around the top 50 in the NHL in scoring in his age-22 season.

Still, those point totals have him a long way from catching up to Kaprizov's scoring stratosphere. Kaprizov finished the season with 17 more goals and 27 more points than Boldy, playing in the same number of games. That gap between Kaprizov and Boldy is a big reason why Evolving-Hockey is projecting him to join his rank next season, which will undoubtedly catch Wild fans' attention.

It's surprising, even for someone who has long been high on Boldy. But it's understandable why their models would be bold in projecting success for the 2019 first-rounder.

While Boldy isn't in that borderline MVP range yet, he's already just a step underneath it. His GAR numbers over the past three seasons are among some of the top names in the past three years. With 43.1 GAR since his debut, Boldy ranks 36th in the NHL in the past three years. Boldy's numbers put him in the range of forwards like Steven Stamkos (44.7), Brayden Point (42.9), and Sebastian Aho (41.0).

Also, Boldy didn't even make his NHL debut until halfway through the 2021-22 season. Looking at his GAR on a per-minute basis, and Boldy is 21st among 271 forwards who've logged 2500-plus minutes in the past three seasons. 

Things were even better last season, as Boldy finished last year with 18.1 GAR (worth about 5.7 points in the standings), 20th in the NHL. For what it's worth, that's only nine spots behind Kaprizov on the leaderboard.

Okay, so Boldy rates pretty well in GAR. That still doesn't explain why he's projected to launch himself in the top 10. What's going on here?

Part of it is age, of course. If a player consistently crushes it at ages 20, 21, and 22, it makes all the sense in the world that he'd still be on the upswing at 23. When looking at players with similar numbers at ages 20 and 21 last year, we found that the ones that took The Leap usually did so around age 23. Boldy has some history on his side. 

The other thing Boldy has on his side is that he has some of the strongest defensive value for a forward in the NHL, according to Evolving-Hockey's metrics. Showing strong defense at a young age is one of the strongest predictors they have for a young player looking to enter into stardom.

Boldy's Even Strength Defense has been worth 11.2 GAR over the past three seasons, which ranks eighth among all forwards in that time. How strong of a predictor is this? Look at Jason Robertson, who is fourth on that list. The 2022-23 saw him rack up 46 goals and 109 points... at age 23. 

Things figure to be no different this season. In the Evolving-Hockey projections, Boldy and Robertson have the highest projection for GAR from their Even Strength Defense. 

Robertson honestly feels like a great comparable for Boldy. Forget about elite speed; they both might not even be average skaters. However, their size and hands mean they can protect the puck through the neutral and offensive zones, and of course, both can rip the puck.

The height of Robertson's young career came alongside elite scoring support from Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz. Boldy got to ride shotgun with Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek down the stretch last season and possibly will do the same next year. If that happens, Boldy could get Robertson-type numbers. 

Evolving-Hockey is high on that possibility, at least, projecting Boldy to finish sixth in Even Strength Offense GAR and 12th in Power Play Offense. It will be hard to drive offense that much, with hands like Boldy's, without coming away with piles of points.

A small subset of fans saw Boldy fail to take a giant jump in his third season and aren't impressed. For all the reasons stated above, that's just silly. The truth is, Boldy has established himself as one of the league's most underrated players. His greatness will soon become undeniable if he can deliver on Evolving-Hockey's projections.