He’s not going back to juniors - he was statiscally the best player on the ice tonight. Had a bad 1st and was solid in the 2nd + 3rd.

Trotz on Dobson tonight : “I thought he played well. The hockey iq, the poise, it’s outstanding.”

Yeah, after last nights game if they send him back to Juniors it'll be a bad move. The kid looked like an NHL defenseman last night and was, arguably, the Isles best D last night. Honestly, after his game last night I don't see how they can even sit the kid... it's time Johnny B learns to be a 7th D.

I agree - Trotz loves him and has said plenty of times that sending him back to juniors would not be good for his development.

Devon toews-Scott mayfield pairing has struggled the first 3 games. I wonder if they rotate boychuk and mayfield. Pelech - pulock , leddy-boychuk, toews-Dobson. I personally wouldn’t, but I can see trotz doing that.

Every player develops differently but I see a ton of similarities between Dobson and Pietrangelo. The Blues sent Petro back to junior D+1 and D+2 and they turned out a no. 1 defenseman/captain. I think there is always room to keep developing certain things in lower ranks; it just sucks that the CHL-NHL arrangement exists because the AHL would be the perfect development path for guys like Dobson.

I don’t know what pietrangelo had to work on in his d+1 and d+2 seasons , but the only flaw to Dobson’s game (according to trotz) is his man strength, which will come over time. Sending him back to juniors and dominating mostly 17-18 year old kids is not going to help him.

I agree that the AHL would be a good place to further develop, but then again I think he’s ready for the NHL. This new era of the NHL has 19 yr olds making positive impacts in their first seasons. It’s only 1 game, but Dobson was very impressive - his XG% was by far the best of any islanders defenseman and he was always in the right position in his own zone.

There’s a reason the Islanders waived a veteran defenseman with 3 years left remaining on his contract - they plan to have Dobson around for the entire season.

Same thing, I remember watching Petro in his cups of coffee and there was clearly a good NHL player there, but he was lanky and needed to fill out. I'm not sure where the concept comes from that dominating juniors doesn't help. It maximizes their ice time, raises their confidence, and they can play vs top competition in the WJC. There are plenty of guys that used their D+2 years outside the NHL to develop in juniors - how bout Barzal?

There’s nothing left for Dobson to prove at the junior level. He already won two memorial cups. Another thing both lamoriello and trotz mentioned - they don’t want his junior team running him into the ground with an insane amount of ice time.

I’m sure there are players that benefited from more time in juniors and will continue to do so. Dobson has outgrown that league, and that’s according to people that are much more knowledgeable of the situation than both of us.

Barzal needed to go back, he looked out of place when he was with the islanders and that year he went back to Seattle and led his team to a title. I would compare barzals situation to ty smith - they both were making uncharacteristic plays in camp which resulted in their teams sending them back to juniors.

Like I said, look at the amount of players making positive impacts in the NHL a year after they were drafted : Charlie mcavoy, Brandon Carlo, Miro heiskanen, Zach werenski, Samuel girard, Cale makar, Ivan provorov , Mikhail sergachev, etc

Yep I'm sure they'll make the right decision, I just don't think it can be very harmful to send a guy down again - there are always things to improve upon. That being said, it sounds like you're saying they've made room for him and expect him to be ready for an NHL role so that's a good sign for him. I think there are plenty of guys that made negative impacts by coming up too soon just like there are plenty of guys that made positive impacts - depends on the player. Guys like Chychrun/Ryan Murray/Yak/Tage Thompson/Zacha, etc. probably were stunted a little by coming up too soon.

BTW I think the Isles did really well in the 2018 draft - didn't think either Wahlstrom or Dobson would be OTB for them. And Wilde and Iskhakov were great high-risk picks in the 2nd after they already had some top talent in the bag from the 1st.

In today’s NHL , high hockey IQ and doing the little things correctly sometimes force a teams hand to keep young players on the roster. Look at Ville Heinola , he’s not a flashy player but his hockey IQ is extremely high and despite his size, he’s still making a positive impact.

I agree on most of those players except chycrun, he’s just injury prone.

Wahlstrom , Dobson, and Wilde fell into their lap. Wahlstrom should be up with the team soon, which is exciting. I personally wanted to draft Akil Thomas over iskhakov, but hopefully he pans out - he’s definitely a project, it will be many years before (if) he makes his NHL debut.