New York Islanders Daily: Don’t Focus on Noah Dobson’s Plus-Minus

New York Islanders prospect Noah Dobson has an awful plus-minus number, but there’s a reason why you should ignore it.

Plus-minus is a flawed stat. It’s a hill I’ve been willing to die on since I started writing about the New York Islanders every day since 2016. Another example of plus-minus becoming an “issue” has arisen due to prospect Noah Dobson.

In 28 games, Noah Dobson is a -30. People who value the stat, which measures how many goals you were on the ice for and against, will tell you it’s awful. Sure, on paper the number -30 is terrible but what does that mean in context?

Well, the Acadie-Bathurst Titan as a team is a -77. The team is a pitiful 5-24-1, there’s no way you can look at plus-minus on a team that bad and determine that Dobson isn’t good defensively, that’s simply not true.

Dobson is leading his QMJHL team in both points and goals with 16 points and 9 goals. For a defenseman that’s phenomenal numbers. Last year, Dobson was over a point per game player but this year he’s off that pace.

The likely culprit is from the team being so bad, not that the prospect is having a bad year. Sooner rather than later, Dobson will be over in the New York Islanders system and you won’t have to worry about Canadian Junior Leagues.

Dobson’s an immense talent, there’s no reason to be hard on him especially if you’re using an extremely poor assessment tool like plus-minus.

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