NY Islanders' Noah Dobson A Complete Enigma In 2024-25

In the modern NHL fandom, there are two schools of thought. First, the analytics nerds who live and die by their spreadsheet data which they use to (hopefully) find objective fact within the natural subjectivity. Their methods, ironically, still struggle with subjectivity, but they are a work in progress.

The second option is the good ole “eye test”. This school of thought uses film, and traditional counting stats like goals and assists to evaluate a player. The “underlying analytics” be darned, I see what I see! Their method is notoriously subjective, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. The value of this analysis is solely tied to the credibility of the speaker.

Which method is better? Neither. The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle, with the choice of film/ analytical model being the most important. The goal of the exercise is to marry the data to the observations. 

That’s the goal of the exercise, not the reality. Need an example? Meet Noah Dobson. 

He is the most polarizing member of the 2024-25 New York Islanders. Some will tell you he is a franchise cornerstone who the Islanders should build around, but others insist that he is terrible. The former are usually the analytical type we discussed above, while the latter are usually those who defer to the eye-test.

Dobson, analytically, is one of the league’s best defensemen regardless of whichever model you pick. Evolving-hockey.com ranks him in the 66th percentile of all NHL defensemen overall, and 81st defensively. Hockeystatcards.com assigns him a 5.1 net rating, placing him well above the 75th percentile of NHL defensemen. On moneypuck.com, his 5.9 xG leads all NYI defensemen. His on-ice expected goal differential is +11.3. He’s the only Islanders defenseman with a positive rating. He does all of this while averaging over 24 minutes of TOI per game; both high in volume and production. Analytics guys like @JFreshHockey on X all agree: Dobson is solid.

At 25 years old, he’s just entering his prime. When you consider the aforementioned stats with his age, it's hard to envision what the problem is. This has gotta be an easy A, right? 

Well…