Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
36

Isaiah George

New York Islanders Defense

A fourth-round pick playing 15:39 a night at 21, with 77 per cent of his shots from beyond 40 feet.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2024-25NYI33145-36001263.915:39
2025-26 so far
Career33145-36001263.915:39

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

33 games in his first NHL action, 1 goal and 4 assists for 5 points at 15:39 a night, on 26 shots at 3.85 per cent. 6 penalty minutes. Minus-3.

A 47.4 per cent chance share across 501 minutes, with on-ice goals of 21-14 against an expected 17.92-19.86 — his line scored three more than the chances warranted and conceded six fewer. For a 21-year-old fourth-round pick handed fifteen minutes a night on a playoff-chasing club, none of that is a bad first look.

The Finesse Game

77 per cent of his shots came from beyond 40 feet at a median of 55, and 9 per cent from inside 20. 26 attempts in 33 games is a defenceman with no offensive brief at all, which is normal for a debut and is the thing to watch.

The skating is good and it is the reason he is here — he retrieves pucks cleanly, escapes a first forechecker, and does not panic making the outlet.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 203 and physically ready in a way that most 21-year-old defencemen are not. He finishes checks, boxes out competently, and does not get pushed off the puck along the wall.

6 penalty minutes in 33 games is exceptional discipline for a first-year defenceman, who is normally the man reaching.

The Intangibles

A fourth-round pick out of London who was in the American League in October and playing top-four minutes by February.

He is 21 and there is nothing to project from 33 games. What is worth recording is that a club fighting for a playoff place gave him fifteen minutes a night and did not lose ground for it, which is not a thing most organisations risk.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 501 minutes

Expected goals
47.4%
27th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
46.8%
22nd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 21 for, 14 against. Expected: 17.9 and 19.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
4th
Numbers
27th

The numbers rank him 23 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 59 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 501 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
NYI took 49.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.4% — 2.5 below the club he did it on.
The role
501 minutes at five-on-five — 17th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Noah Dobson50.1%45.7%55.0%
Anders Lee56.7%43.2%50.6%
Kyle Palmieri49.1%46.7%48.7%

50.1% together, 45.7% for him apart and 55.0% for Dobson apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Dobson and did not follow him.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

35 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 40 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 77% from beyond forty.