He has progressed a great deal compared to where he was less than two years ago. But if Roy was put in the NHL right now he'd be clearly below-average in basically every facet of pure skating skills, be it acceleration, agility, pivots, and straight-line speed.
His technique also isn't the cleanest, so if he played pro right now then Roy would expend more energy than your average NHLer to compensate for that weakness, leading to him having less "juice" to execute plays all over the ice.
To be completely frank, I think that the only facet of Roy's skating that would be "NHL average" right now would be his edges, but that's not enough to go on and enjoy real success at that level. Not unless you're a physical freak and big as an ox, which Roy clearly is not.
But in his draft year, Roy was much more than "below-average" for the NHL level as far as his skating went. For those who remember, I personally think that Douglas Murray from when he played with us would have been seen as a "Fast Boiii" in comparison to Roy's skating ability back at the summer of the 2021 draft.
So yeah, the difference is quite striking when you compare Joshua Roy's skating now as opposed to where it was before he fixed his conditioning, trained under a power-skating coach, and started going to the gym more.
But he still has tons of things to improve in that aspect before he ever makes it into the pro leagues. I believe that he still has lots of gains to go through physically that should help him be a faster, more explosive skater on the ice, but he will also need to clean up that skating technique of his quite a bit before he can be an effective NHLer.
More specifically, I'm talking about less torso rotation, a lower skating stance, increased ankle flexion, more fluid cross-overs/less choppy stride, and more still when it comes to technique.
Accessorily, as far as how much current Habs development team helps him, we don't have the inside story so it's very tough to gauge really. But, as I've said, difference is quite striking between now and 18 months ago, and progression seems to be ongoing so Montreal (and Sherbrooke too) must be doing something right.
As far as I see it, I think/hope Joshua Roy might in fact be one of those guys who manages to actually fully mitigate a skating weakness that he had when drafted. And those types of guys generally go on to enjoy long and very successful careers in the NHL, so let's hope it is indeed the case with Roy.
