The Islanders signed, or re-signed, a slew of players earlier this week, of both the NHL and AHL variety. The big name that was secured was defenceman Noah Dobson, who signed a three-year deal with a $4M average annual value. For a 22-year-old coming off a 51-point season, not a bad deal for the team as they work through their apparent Cup window.

From a fantasy perspective, what we want to know is if he can repeat, or improve upon, his breakout 2021-22 season. The 12^th overall pick from 2018 was always marked to be a good defenceman, but can he be a top-end producer from the backend? Let's dig into that a bit. We will use data from our Frozen Tools as well as Natural Stat Trick. Other sources will be credited as we move along.

First, it is worth noting that he does appear to have improved every season he's been in the NHL, having just finished his third year. His goal scoring rates, shot rates, point rates, and ice time at 5-on-5 have increased each season thus far. It is one thing to be thrust into a role he hasn't really earned, but it doesn't seem to be the case here, at least by his production numbers.

What makes Dobson a bit different, though, is that his playmaking as a blue liner was obvious from the moment he stepped into the big leagues. From CJ Turtoro's viz, the PEI native's rookie season saw him with very good transition numbers, as well as stellar shot and shot assist rates (passes leading to shots):

That maintained itself through the COVID 2021 campaign, where he led regular Islanders blue liners in shot rate and was second (behind Nick Leddy) in shot assists. He was a dual threat, or a burgeoning one, from the blue line. Corey Sznajder's data tracking also had him leading the Islanders defencemen in zone exits per 60 minutes, in line with names like MacKenzie Weegar, Zach Werenski, and Alex Pietrangelo. He was also among their leaders in failed exits per 60 minutes, but that's really not an awful thing from a then-21-year-old rearguard. Those kinds of mistakes were going to happen for a young player but that he was so involved in the offence was a good start.

His problem was that despite his dual threat nature, and his ability to transition the puck, those turnovers, combined with poor defensive play, didn't result in much scoring. His on-ice expected goal rate fell in COVID 2021 and with it a decline in actual goal rates. He was more involved in the scoring so his per-minute production at 5-on-5 rose, and more ice time boosted his per-game rates, but there were still some holes in his game.

The final big note from his first two seasons was the lack of power-play time. Nick Leddy and Ryan Pulock were off-and-on competing for the top PP unit with Dobson playing the filler role. Sometimes he was on PP1, sometimes PP2, and sometimes he split a PP unit with another defenceman. Though he was used, that bouncing did him no favours. Neither did the fact that the Islanders were a bottom-10 team on the power play in the league. The team didn't draw a lot of power plays and having three different defencemen in regular rotation kept PP totals for everyone rather meagre.

With Leddy gone in 2021-22, that all changed. Dobson led the team in PPTOI by a significant margin to open the season and that persisted basically all year long. But it's how the team changed as the season wore on, at all strengths, that is important to discuss here. Through the team's first 22 games – Dobson's first 20 contests – of the season, the Islanders were 31^st out of 32 teams in goals per minute at all strengths (and 30^th in expected goals). The Islanders were only better than Arizona in goal scoring through the first two months of the campaign and that hurt everyone's totals. Dobson had just seven points in that stretch as everyone struggled to find the back of the net.

The reasons for that were varied. Though it seems like forever ago now, we have to keep in mind the team started the year on an absurd road trip: they didn't play a single home game for five weeks. They also went through a slew of COVID cancellations and infections which really messed with their entire pre-Christmas schedule. The team won just six of its first 22 games and the season was mostly derailed because of that.

Everything changed post-circus road trip and post-COVID issues. From the end of December through the end of the year, the team climbed to 19^th in goal scoring per minute. A big reason for that was the improvement of the power play, which was top-10 over their final 56 games, nestled between Colorado and Calgary. With Dobson patrolling the top power play quintet, he posted 20 PPPs in 60 games, or 46% of his total production. He was the unquestioned PP1 defenceman and was earning 2:41 a night with the man advantage. That is roughly 50 seconds more per game than the year before and it paid off handsomely for him and the Islanders.

What is curious, though, is he didn't earn monster ice time overall. His final 56 games saw him skate exactly 22 minutes a night. That led all Islanders defencemen by over 50 seconds a night but he was outside the top-50 defencemen league-wide in TOI per game in that span. He was New York's top blue liner, but he wasn't given that kind of ice time when compared with other teams.

That is one thing that bothers me about projecting his future fantasy value. In parts of seven season with the Islanders, Leddy never cracked 23 minutes a night. Pulock hasn't done it in his career, either. This is a franchise that loves to spread the ice time around which makes me doubt he'll reach the production levels of other young defencemen like Adam Fox or Quinn Hughes. Of the eight defencemen to reach 60 points last year, Fox was the only one under 24 minutes a night, and he skated 23:54. If Dobson is skating, say, 22:15 a night, can he improve significantly on the 51 points he posted?

Finally, and one reason why he may never skate monster minutes for the Islanders, is his defence. As posted earlier in that viz, Dobson gave up the defensive blue line way too much and failed to exit the zone cleanly too often as well. That was very obvious in 2021-22 as well, as the same tracking data mentioned earlier shows:

Giving up the blue line a lot, and turning the puck over often when trying to exit the zone, are things that coaches will not appreciate. He may be gifted offensively but, at least to this point, he hasn't shown to be a game-breaking offensive defenceman like Fox and Hughes did early in their careers. That's why I think there'll be a TOI cap on him and, in turn, an upside cap.

Of course, he's still a very young defenceman. He has just 160 regular season games under his belt which isn't two full seasons, and he doesn't turn 23 years old until January. Take Keith Yandle's career for example. He had a lot of great years, but only 3 of 15 full NHL seasons saw him skate over 23 minutes a night as poor defence was a hallmark of his. Unsurprisingly, those three years of 23+ minutes a night accounted for three of his five 50-point seasons. With Dobson skating on the top PP unit regularly, I don't have much doubt he can return to the 50-point mark. It's whether he can crack 60 or even 70 points that we're interested in. Unless his defensive ability turns around, at least modestly, I'm not sure the team trusts him enough to give him 24-25 minutes a night. Not a franchise that prides itself on defence.

Our 2022-23 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide has him in the low-50s for point production and that feels right. They're running back mostly the same roster and Dobson will likely have a similar role to last year. With a better start, maybe he can get over 55 points but until his game rounds out, or he becomes a high-end game-breaker like Roman Josi eventually did, that's really pushing his upper production limit.

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With the (hopeful) emergence of Cam York and signing of Tony DeAngelo, it seems like we're not talking much about Ivan Provorov. Let's talk about him for a second.

To be sure, with York and DeAngelo around, Provorov is relegated to, at best, secondary PP minutes. Ryan Ellis doesn't look like he'll be ready for the start of the year but when (if?) he does return, it's not outlandish to think that Provorov could be off the power play entirely. That is one problem with his fantasy value; he had just 7 PPPs in 79 games last year and though Sean Couturier should be back, with a diminished or non-existent PP role, Provorov probably won't improve much on that in 2021-22.

There is also the issue of his physicality. Over his first four seasons, he averaged nearly 1.5 hits per game. Over his last two seasons, that fell below 1.0. If he has little PP production and is only putting up 80 hits, his multi-cat appeal takes a big hit.

But there is still reason to believe in his production ability. Last year he managed 31 points in 79 games with the team scoring just 2.4 goals per 60 minutes with him on the ice. For reference, that number was 3.1 per 60 minutes over his prior three seasons. Just a modest scoring rebound from the team as a whole means Provorov has 40 points within reach.

It seems doubtful he reaches production highs that some of us had for him when he posted 30- and 40-point seasons in his first two years. His offensive profile hasn't really improved and now he has a lot of competition for the prime offensive minutes. He'll still be productive, just not top-end, and that makes a difference when we're talking points-only or multi-cat leagues.

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I was going through Justin Faulk's season and something hit me: we should be taking about Torey Krug's season.

While discussing defencemen, I think it's important to adjust our expectations. One thing that came up while researching this Ramblings was just how many 40-point defencemen there were: 33. That was in a turbulent season, too. Thomas Chabot had 38 points in 59 games, with Erik Karlsson having 35 in 50 contests and Miro Heiskanen with 36 in 70 games. There were 33 defencemen with at least 40 points in 2021-22 and, for reference, the 2018-19 season had 30. If the scoring environment stays the same and we don't have a lot of postponements (fingers crossed), we could push close to 40 defencemen posting 40 points. It just doesn't buy what it used to. Krug, meanwhile, paced for 55 points in 82 games (43 in 64) and that would be a very good fantasy season for him. My question, as it is with a lot of St. Louis Blues skaters, is what is the impact of losing David Perron?

As I've written a few times since he signed in Detroit, Perron was an engine for that St. Louis power play: he had 74 PPPs over his last three seasons with the Blues. No other St. Louis forward managed 50. On a per-minute basis, the only forwards in the league to have a higher rate than Perron from 2019-22 was the Edmonton duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. How do the Blues replace that?

I am not sure they can. It's a reason I'm not as bullish on Blues skaters as I've been in recent seasons. Maybe someone else – Jordan Kyrou? – replaces his impact but it's a very high bar. It'll be fascinating to watch this play out in St. Louis, and Detroit, this year.

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It’s just worth noting because it dilutes the mid-tier producers in the fantasy game a bit more. If there are an extra 8-10 defencemen with good production, the rest of the guys in that range become less valuable (hey, I did learn something in those economics classes!). A guy projected for 42 points just isn't what it was five years ago.  

That doesn't mean a lot to the super high-end guys like Josi or Fox but it is worth noting for the middle class of blue liners.