New York Islanders

Islanders’ Noah Dobson Shows There’s More To His Game On PK

Published

6 months ago

October 18, 2023

Elmont, NY– The New York Islanders were quickly put to the test in their first game without Scott Mayfield, facing the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday night.

Midway through the first period, Hudson Fasching was assessed a double-minor penalty for high sticking, creating a sense of dread that permeated through UBS Arena.

Without Mayfield–whose 363 short-handed minutes leads the team over the last three seasons– the Islanders had no choice but to rely on Noah Dobson and his questionable history defensively.

But rather than giving up what could’ve been a back-breaking goal, Dobson and the Islanders clamped down and surrendered just one shot on goal to kill off the four-minute penalty.

“Really good kill early on,” Dobson said. “Everyone had good sticks and good blocked shots. It was huge to get that kill early.”

Although the kill was a huge boost for the Islanders as a whole, it showed that Dobson’s game may not be as one-dimensional as originally thought.

For much of his young career, Dobson has served as the Islanders’ primary threat offensively on the backend, getting much more time playing the point on the team’s top power-play unit rather than the penalty kill.

Against Arizona, though, Dobson had 2:43 of short-handed ice time and contributed to the Islanders successfully killing off three penalties in a shutout victory.

“He’s a smart player,” Lambert said. “Noah has killed penalties in practice. When he first came in and was playing some nights, and some nights he wasn’t, he killed penalties in practice a lot. This is a guy who’s a very smart player, and he understands the nature of the penalty kill and where to be, so he has good reads on that.”

In the Islanders’ opening night win against the Buffalo Sabres on Oct. 14, Dobson committed two miscues in his own end that directly resulted in a pair of opposing goals, making his performance against Arizona–which included the primary assist on Mathew Barzal’s power-play goal –a bit of a surprise.

While Tuesday’s results shouldn’t be an indicator that Dobson has completely transformed into a shutdown defenseman overnight, they do show that he can rebound from bad games and can be serviceable in penalty-killing situations, at least while Mayfield remains on the shelf.

“In preseason, you kind of get some reps and continue to work on it,” Dobson said. “Obviously, it’s hard to replace Mayfield on the kill. He’s one of the better killers around the league. I think, as a committee, we all just had to step up a little.”