This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Noah Dobson
Montreal Canadiens Defense
39 points and 196 shots at 25, and the largest acquisition this organisation has made in a decade.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | NYI | 34 | 1 | 6 | 7 | -1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 37 | 2.7 | 13:17 |
| 2020-21 | NYI | 46 | 3 | 11 | 14 | +1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 69 | 4.3 | 16:24 |
| 2021-22 | NYI | 80 | 13 | 38 | 51 | -3 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 190 | 6.8 | 21:28 |
| 2022-23 | NYI | 78 | 13 | 36 | 49 | +4 | 20 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 206 | 6.3 | 20:23 |
| 2023-24 | NYI | 79 | 10 | 60 | 70 | +12 | 36 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 174 | 5.8 | 24:31 |
| 2024-25 | NYI | 71 | 10 | 29 | 39 | -16 | 28 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 196 | 5.1 | 23:16 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 388 | 50 | 180 | 230 | -3 | 118 | 10 | 0 | 11 | 872 | 5.7 | 20:53 |
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
10 goals and 29 assists in 71 games for 39 points, minus-16, on 23:16 a night with the Islanders and 196 shots.
A 70-point season two years ago and 39 in this one, on a club that collapsed around him. The minus-16 belongs largely to the environment and the drop in production is harder to dismiss.
The Finesse Game
A genuine offensive defenceman. The shot from the point is heavy and he takes a lot of them — 196 attempts is a high volume — and the first pass is quick and accurate enough to run a breakout by himself.
29 assists is well short of the 60-point seasons he has had, and the reason is partly that the club around him could not finish. The puck-carrying is good rather than dominant; he moves it more than he takes it.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 200, and he defends with reach and position rather than force. He is not a punishing defenceman and does not clear a crease decisively.
28 penalty minutes over 71 games is disciplined. The durability has been reasonable — he has cleared 70 games in four of six seasons.
The Intangibles
A first-round pick, seven seasons on Long Island, a 70-point year, a difficult contract negotiation, and a trade at 25 that cost Montreal two first-round picks and a forward.
That is a substantial price and the projection justifies it: a right-shot top-pair defenceman at 25 to play beside Lane Hutson. It is the most consequential thing this club has done since drafting him.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,252 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.2%
- 87th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.6%
- 87th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 47 for, 36 against. Expected: 53.3 and 45.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 11 points of one another. 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.
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 — 77 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 with NYI · 1252 minutes at five-on-five
- Adam Pelech14%
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 54.2% — 4.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,252 minutes at five-on-five — 88th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Romanov | 53.9% | 54.4% | 46.9% |
| Kyle Palmieri | 54.5% | 54.1% | 45.7% |
| Bo Horvat | 52.2% | 55.3% | 49.4% |
53.9% together, 54.4% for him apart and 46.9% for Romanov apart. Romanov was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Romanov than for 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
288 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 29 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 74% from beyond forty.